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THE ECHO : 



OK, 



BORROWED NOTES 



FOR 



HOME CIRCULATION. 

BY CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN, 

AUTHOR OF "GREYSLAER," &c. 



CONTAINING 

THE VIGIL OF FAITH, 
EROS AND ANTEROS, 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS, 
OCCASIONAL POEMS, 
EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



NEW YORK: 

o 

BURGESS & STRINGER, 

CORNER OF BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. 

PHILADELPHIA, GEORGE B. ZIEBER & CO. THIRD STREET. 

1844. 



THE ECHO: 



OR. 



BORROWED NOTES 



FOR HOME CIRCULATION. 






BY 




CKWHOFFMAN, 



AUTHOR OP " A WINTER IN THE WEST;" "GREV'SLAER," etc. 



American Poetry is little better than a far off Echo of the Father Land. It is necessary to enter a 
little into this oint, for the sake of exhibiting the nature as well as the extent of the Echo." 

BRITISH "FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW.' 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LINDSAY & BLAKISTON, CHESNUT STREET. 

1844. 






Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1844, by C. F. Hoffman, in the 
clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District 
of New York. 



CONTENTS. 



THE VIQIL OF FAITH Page 7 

BONOS-EROS AND ANTEROS:— 

I. Th>'v are mockery all 15 

[I, Why seek her heart to understand 15 

III. Those eyes — those eyes 15 

I V. 'T is hard to share her smiles with many . . . . 1G 
V. Ay ! there it is, that winning smile 10 

VI. She loves— hut 't is not me she loves JG 

» VII. Like one who, on some clouded night 16 

VIII. I will love her no more 1G 

IX. I lied— ah yes, I lied like saucy page 16 

X. I do not love thee 17 

XI. I know thou dost love me 17 

XII. I ask not what shadow came over her heart. .17 

XIII. I waited for thee 17 

XIV. Do I not love thee 17 

XV. Nay, plead not thou art dull to-night 17 

XVI. Life seems to thee more earnest, dearest ... .17 
XVII. Thou ask'st me why that thought of death . .18 

XVIII. A*k me not why I should love her IS 

XIX. Where dost thou loiter, Spring 18 

X X. WhHe lie thou lovest were not the same ... .13 

XXI. Sleeping! why now sleeping 18 

XXII. Thoughts— wild thoughts 18 

XXIV. Think of me, dearest 19 

XXV. Why should I murmur ; 19 

VXVI. Trust in thee 19 

XXVII. They say that thou art alter'd, Amy 19 

XXVIII. Take, back then thy pledges 19 

XXIX. Tlicy tell me that my trustiug heart 20 

XXX. Alas! if she be false to me 20 

XXXI. Withering— withering 20 

XXX 1 1. I knew not how I loved thee 20 

XXXIII. The conflict is over 20 

SOXGS— MISCELLANEOUS :— 

Sparkling and bright 21 

Rosalie Clare 21 

The Invitation 21 

The Mint Julep 22 

Wake, Lady, wake 22 

Tlte Myrtle and Steel 22 

My Birchen Bark 23 

Le Faineant 23 

The Brook and the Pine 23 

" L'Amour sans Ailes" 23 

The Vachter 24 

No more — no more 24 

Anacreontic 24 

The Love Test 24 

Song of the Drowned 25 

Morning Hymn 25 

The Sleigh Bells 25 

Boat Song 25 

Room, boys, room 2G 



Love and Faith , gg 

The Remonstrance 07 

Bull' and Blue 07 

Melody ' 27 

We parted in sadness 07 

Trust not Love 27 

Away to the forest 28 

A Hunter's Matin 28 

The Lover's Star 28 

OCCASIONAL POEMS:— 

Moonlight on t he Hudson 29 

Written in Springtime 30 

Town Repinings 30 

A Portrait 31 

A Frontier Incident 31 

The Language of Flowers 31 

Indian Summer, 1828 32 

Epitaph upon a Dog, 32 

St. Valentine's Day 32 

To an Autumn Rose 30 

Thy Name 33 

What is Solitude? 33 

Birth-Day Thoughts 33 

The Blush , . 33 

The Bob-o'-Linkum 34 

Distrust 34 

Sympathy 34 

The W T ish 34 

" Our Friendship" 34 

"Brunt the Fight" 35 

Waller to Saccharissa 35 

Primeval Woods. 35 

The First and Last Parting 36 

Written in a Lady's Prayer Book • • • -36 

"Where would I rest?" , 37 

EARLY MISCELLANIES:— 

The Ambuscade 38 

Love's Vagaries 40 

The Suicide 41 

The Thaw-King's Visit to New York 41 

Rhymes on West Poi nt 43 

A Birth-Day Meditation 43 

Platonics 44 

" Coming Out" 44 

The Waxen Rose 45 

To a Lady, with a collection of Verses .45 

Myne Heartte 45 

Writing for an Album 45 

To a Lady Weeping in Church 46 

• Byron 46 

Holding a Girl's Jumping Rope 46 

The Declaration 47 

Closing Accounts 47 

Forest Musings , 4a 



TO HUFUS W. GRISWOLD. 



Mv Deak Sir, — You may remember some three or four years since having asked me 
for a list of the various signatures under which my anonymous verses had appeared in 
different American periodicals during the last twenty years. You are perhaps aware, also, 
of the disparaging remarks which your free and flattering use, in " The Poetry of Ame- 
rica," of the verses thus patiently collected by you, has called out in some quarters. I 
have often regretted that I permitted those effusions (most of which had long since answered 
the casual purpose for which they were written) to be thus exhumed : regretted it, not 
from any particular sensibility to the critical dicta by which they have been assailed ; but 
simply because, like many a sanguine yet indolent person originally conscious of rather 
vivid poetic aspirations, I had, from my boyhood upward, from early manhood onward 
11 lived along in the hope of doing something or other" in the way of a poem that my 
countrymen would not unwillingly let live: and because (while thus probably much over- 
rating poetic powers in reserve) I was unwilling that these fugitive pieces should fix a 
character upon my writings it might be difficult to supersede by any subsequent effort in 
a higher order of composition. That fanciful regret, if not abated, has, with the consi- 
derations from which it sprung, been swallowed up lately by a reality which I deem of 
more imperious moment than any thing affecting mere literary reputation. 

One of those British reviews, which, in the absence of an international copyright, do 
the thinking of this country upon literary matters, and which, you know, are circulated 
so widely and are of such authority here that it is idle for an American author to refuse to 
plead to any indictment they may prefer, has recently done me the honor, amid a confused 
mass of indiscriminate accusations against my countrymen at large, to select me specially 
and individually for the odious charge of gross and hitherto unheard-of literary dishonesty.* 

Now, my dear sir, while it is due to you to relieve you from all responsibility as god- 
father of these questionable effusions, by publishing them under my own name, — this is 
likewise the only way by winch so sweeping and damnatory a charge can be fully met, 
without involving myself in egotistical explanations far worse than those I am furnishing 
here, because they would be endless. I have therefore, as the question is one of charac- 
ter, and not of mere literary taste, collected all the pieces by which I have attempted "to 
hocus the Americans," that I could lay my hands upon : and though the unconscious 
imposition has been running on so long that many may have escaped me, yet there are 
enough of all kinds for the present purpose ; which is to give that portion of the abused 
public who feel any interest in the matter, an opportunity of deciding (not whether it is 
good poetry, for that is not the question — but) whether they have really been taken in so 
much after all : whether or not the affecting predicament of the amiable Parisian who 
spoke prose for so many years without knowing it, has found a whimsical counterpart 

* "It is reserved for Charles Fcnno Hoffman to distance all plagiarists of ancient and modern 



PREFACE. 



in the unconscious use of the poetry of others by the writer of these effusions : or whether, 
finally, they do sometimes — however rarely — (to borrow the language of my friendly 
reviewer) " possess the property described in the mocking birds — a solitary note of their 

own." 

I am, dear sir, your friend ana servant, 

C. F. HOFFMAN. 

New York, February 22d, 1844. 



limes in the enormity and magnitude of Ms thefts. ' No American,' says Mr. Griswold, « is comparable to 
him as a song- writer.' We are not surprised at the fact, considering the magnitude of his obligations to 
Moore. Hoffman is Moore hocused for the American market. His songs are rifaciamcntos. The 
turns of the melody, the flooding of the images, the scintillating Conceits — all are Moore. Sometimes 
he steals the very words. One song begins, ' Blame not the bowl' — a hint taken from ' Blame not the 
bard :' another ' One bumper, yet, gallants, at parting.' Hoffman is like a hand-organ — a single touch 
sets him off — he wants only the key-note, and he plays away as long as his wind lasts. The resem- 
blance, when it runs into whole lines and verses, is more like a parody than a simple plagiarism. One 

specimen will be ample. 

'Tis in moments like this, when each bosom 

With its highest-toned feeling is warm, 
Like the music that's said from the ocean 

To rise in the gathering storm, 
That her image around us should hover, 

Whose name, though our lips ne'er reveal, 
We may breathe through the foam of a bumper, 

As we drink to the myrtle and steel. 

" He had Moore's measure ringing in his ear, and demanding a simile in the middle of the first qua- 
train — hence the music from the ocean. The third and fourth lines are an echo of a sound, without the 
smallest particle of meaning or application in them. They constitute the means, nevertheless, by which 
Hoffman hocuses the Americans. Drop them out, altogether, and, so far as the sense is concerned, the 
song would be materially improved," — Foreign Quarterly Review for January, 1844. 

[The examples given by the reviewer to prove his charge, perhaps shake his position, and possibly 
they do not. He is certainly mistaken about the similarity of ' measure,' as any one may verify by 
counting the feet in the different songs mentioned. As for their identity of thought with those delicious 
things of Moore's upon which the ingenious reviewer insists they are modelled, any 'American' who 
feels a curiosity to ascertain how far he has been ' hocused,' may determine for himself by referring to 
" Moore's Melodies" — a work not wholly unknown in this country. H.] 



THE VIGIL OF FAITH, 



A TALE OF ABORIGINAL MESMERISM. 



1 He held him with his glittering eye."— Coleridge. 



'T was in the mellow autumn time, 
That revel of our masquing clime, 

When, as the Indian crone believes, 
The rainbow tints of Nature's prime 

She in her forest banner weaves ; 
To show in that bright blazonry, 
How the young earth did first supply 
Each gorgeous hue that paints the sky, 

Or in the sunset billow heaves. 

II. 

'T was in the mellow autumn time, 
When, from the spongy swollen swamp, 

The lake a darker tide receives ; 
When nights are growing long and damp ; 
And at the dawn a glistering rime 
Is silver'd o'er the gaudy leaves : 
When hunters leave their hill-side camp, 

With fleet hound some, the dun-deer rousing, 
In ' still-hunt' some, to shoot him browsing ; 
And close at night their forest tramp, 

Where the fat yearling scents their fire, 
And, new unto their murderous ways, 

Affrighted, feels his life expire 
As stupidly he stands at gaze, 

Where that wild crew sit late carousing. 

III. 

'T was in the mellow autumn time, 

When I, an idler from the town, 
With gun and rod was lured to climb 

Those peaks where fresh the Hudson takes 
His tribute from an hundred lakes ; 

Lakes which the sun, though pouring down 
His mid-day splendors round each isle, 

At eventide so soon forsakes 
That you may watch his fading smile 

For hours around those summits glow 
When all is gray and chill below ; 



While, in that brief autumnal day, 
Still, varying all in feature, they 
As through their watery maze you stray 
Will yet some wilding beauty show. 

IV. 

For he beholds, whose footfalls press 
The mosses of that wilderness, 
Each charm the glorious Hudson boasts 

Through his far reaching strand — 
When sweeping from these leafy coasts, 
His mighty march he sea-ward takes — 
First pictured in those mountain lakes, 

All fresh from Nature's hand ! 
Some broadly flashing to the sun, 

Like warrior's shield when first display'd, 
Some, dark, as when, the battle done, 

That shield oft blackens in the glade. 
Round one that on the eye will ope 

With many a winding sunny reach, 
The rising hills all gently slope 

From turfy bank and pebbled beach. 
With rocks and ragged forests bound, 

Deep set in fir-clad mountain shade, 
You trace another where resound 

The echoes of the hoarse cascade. 

V. 

Aweary with a day of toil, 

And all uncheer'd with hunter spoil, 
Guiding a wet and sodden boat, 

With thing, half paddle, half an oar, 
I chanced one murky eve to float 

Along the grim and ghastly shore 
Of such wild water ; 
Past trees, some shooting from the bank, 

With dead boughs dipping in the wave, 
And some with trunks moss-grown and dank, 
On which the savage, that here drank 

A thousand years ago, might grave 
His tale of slaughter. 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



VI. 

Gazing amid these mouldering stems, 
Through thickets from their ruins starting, 

To spy a deer-track, if I could, 
I saw the boughs before me parting, 

Revealing what seemed two bright gems 
Gleaming from out the dusky wood ; 
And in that moment on the shore, 
Just where I brush'd it with my oar, 
An aged Indian stood ! 

VII. 

Nay ! shrink not, lady, from my tale, 

Because, erst moved by border story 
Thy thoughtful cheek grew still more pale 
At images so dire and gory 
Nor yet — grown colder since that time — 
Cry — half impatient of my rhyme — 
" An Indian ! — why, on theme so trite 
There's nothing surely new to write? 
While I — who shudder'd with surprise 
But now at those two glaring eyes — 
Laugh at your painted Indian Fright !" 

VIII. 

Yet so it was, and nothing more ; 

The deer-stand that I sought was here, 
Where too the Indian came for deer ; 

A civil fellow, seldom drunk, 
Who dragg'd my leaky skiff ashore, 

And pointed out a fallen trunk, 
Where sitting I could spy the brink, 

Beneath the gently tilting branches, 
And shoot the buck that came to drink 

Or wash the black-flies from his haunches. 
With this he plunged into the wood, 

Saying he on the ' run-way' knew 
Another stand, and quite as good 

If but the night breeze fairly blew. 

IX. 

So there, like mummied sagamore 

I crouch with senses fairly aching, 
To catch each sound by wood or shore 
Upon the twilight stillness breaking. 
I start ! that crash of leaves below, 
A light hoof surely rattles ? — No ! 

From overhead a dry branch parted. 
A plash ! 'T is but the wavelets tapping 
Yon floating log. The partridge drums ; 

With thrilling ears again I 've started ; 
The booming sound at distance hums 
Like rushing herds. I start as though 

A gang of moose had caught me napping. 
And now my straining sight grows dim 
While nearer yet the nighthawks skim; 
Well, ' let the hart ungalled play,' 
I '11 think of sweet looks far away. — 
But no ! I list and gaze about, 



My rifle to my shoulder clapping 
At leap of every truant trout, 
Or lotus leaf the water flapping. 

X. 

An hour went thus without a sign . 

Of buck or doe in range appearing ; 
The wind began to crisp the lake, 
The wolf to howl from out the brake, 
And I to think that boat of mine 

Had better soon be campward steering : 
When near me through the deepening night 
Again I saw those eyes so bright, 

And as my swarthy friend drew nigher, 
I heard these words pronounced in tone, 
Lady, as silken as thine own, 

"White man, we'd better make a fire." 

XL 

Our kindling stuff lay near at hand- 
Peelings of bark, some half uncoil'd 
In flakes, from boughs by age despoil'd, 

And some in shreds by rude winds torn ; 
Dead vines that round the dead trees clung ; 

Long moss that from their old arms swung, 
Tatter'd and stain'd — all weather-worn, 
Like funeral weeds hung out to dry, 
Or banners drooping mournfully ; — 

These quickly caught the spark we fann'd. 
Branches, that once waved over head, 
Now crisply crackling to our tread, 

Fed next the greedy flame's demand. 
Lastly a fallen trunk or two — 
Which from its weedy lair we drew, 
And o'er the blazing brushwood threw — 
For savory broil supplied the brand. 

XII. 

Of hemlock-fir we made our couch, 
A bed for cramps and colds consoling ; 

I had some biscuits in my pouch, 
A salmon-trout I 'd killed in trolling ; 
My comrade had some venison dried, 
And corn in bear's lard lately fried : 

And on my word, I will avouch 
That when we would our stock divide 

In equal portions, save the last, 
Apicius could not deride 

The relish of that night's repast. 

XIII. 

We talk'd that night — I love to talk 

With these grown children of the wild, 
When in their native forest walk, 

Confiding, simple as a child, 
They lose at times that sullen mood 
Which marks the wanderer of the wood, 
And in that pliant hour will show 

As prodigal and fresh of thought 
As genius when its feelings flow 

In words by feeling only taught. 



THE VIGIL OF FAITH. 



XIV. 
We talk'd — 'twos first, offish and game, 

Of hunters arts to strike the quarry, 
Of portages and lakes whose name, 
As utter'd in liis native speeel), 
If memory could have hoarded each, 

A portage-labour 'twere to carry. 
Yi t one whose Length — it is a score 
Of miles perhaps in length or more — 

'Tie glorious to troll, 
I can recall in name and feature 
From dull oblivion's scathe, 
Partly hecausc in trim canoe 
I since have track'd it through and through, 
Partly that from this simple creature 
I heard that night a tale of faith 
Which moved my very soul. 

XV. 

Yes, Inca-pah-cho! though thy name 
Has never flow'd in poet's numbers, 

And all unknown, thy virgin claim 
To wild and matchless beauty, slumbers ; 
Yet memory's pictures all must fade 

Ere I forget that sunset view 
When, issuing first from darksome glade 
A day of storms had darker made, 

Thy floating isles and mountains blue, 
Thy waters sparkling far away 
Round craggy point and verdant bay — 
The point with dusky cedars crown'd, 
The bay with beach of silver bound — 
Upon my raptured vision grew. 
Grew every moment, brighter, fairer, 

As I, at close of that wild day, 
Emerging from the forest nearer, 
Saw the red sun his glorious path 
Cleave through the storm-cloud's dying wrath, 

And with one broad triumphant ray 
Upon thy crimson'd waters cast, 
Sink warrior-like to rest at last. 

XVI. 

"I like Lake Inca-pah-cho well," 

Half mused aloud my wild-wood friend; 
Why, white man, I can hardly tell ! 
For fish and deer, at either end 
The rifts arc good ; but run-ways more 
There arc by crooked Iroquois : 
And Rackett at the time of spearing, 
As well as that for yarding moose, 
Hath both, enough for hunters' use : 
Amid these hills arc lakes appearing 
More limpid to the summer's eye ; 
In some at night the stars will twinkle 

As if they dropp'd there from the sky 
The pebbled bed below to sprinkle ; 
I ply my paddle in them all — 

Of all, at times, a home have made — 
Yet, stranger, when I've thither stray'd 



I scem'd to hear the ripples fall 

Each time stdl sweeter than before 
On I.nca-paii-ciio's* winding shore." 

XVII. 

There was a sadness in his tone 

His careless words would fain disown ; 

Or rather I w-ould say their touch 

Of mourufulnoss bctray'd that much, 

Much more of deep and earnest feeling 

Was through his withcr'd bosom stealing: 

For now far back in memory 

So much absorb'd he scem'd to be, 

I 'd not molest his revcry ; 

And when — in phrase I now forget — 

When I at last the silence broke, 
In the same train of musing yet, 

Watching the while the wreathed smoke 
Curl from his lighted calumet, 

He thus aloud half pondering spoke : — 

XVIII. 

" Years, years ago, when life was new, 
And long before there was a clearing 
Among these Adirondack Highlands, 

My chieftain kept his best canoe 
On one of Inca-pah-cho's islands — 
The largest, which lies toward the north, 
As you are though the Narrows veering — 

And there had reared his wigwam too, 
A trapper now with years o'erladcn, 

He lived there with one. only daughter, 
A gentle but still gamesome maiden, 
Who, I have heard, would venture forth, 
Venture upon the darkest night 
Across the broad and gusty water 
To climb that cliff" upon the main, 

By some since call'd the maiden's rest, 
That foot save hers hath never press'd, 
And watch the camp-fire's distant light, 
Which told that she should see again 
Her hunter when the dawn was bright." 

XIX. 

He paused — look'd down, then stirr'd the fire, 

He smiled — I did not like that smile, 
As leaning on his elbow nigher 

His bright eyes glared in mine the while. 
And I was glad that scrutiny o'er, 
When neither had misgivings more, 
While he, in earnest now at last, 
Reveal'd his memories of the past. 

* ' Inca-pah-cho' (anglice, Lindenmere) is so called by. 
the Indians from its forests of Bass-wood or American Lin- 
den. It is better known perhaps by the insipid name of 
' Long Lake ;' and is one of that chain of mountain lakes 
which though closely interlacing with the sources of the 
Hudson, discharge themselves through Eackett river into 
the St. Lawrence. They lie on the borders of Essex in 
Hamilton county, New York. 



10 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



XX. 

" White man, thy look is open, kind, 

Thou scornest not a tale of truth ! 
Should I in thee a mocker find, 

'T would shame alike thy blood and youth. 
I trust thee ! well, now look upon 

This wither'd cheek and shrunken form ! 
Canst think, young man, i" was the one 

For whom that maiden dared the storm 1 
Yes, often, till a tribesman came — ■ 
It matters not to speak his name — 
A youth as tall, as straight as I, 
As quick his quarry to descry, 
A hunter bold upon his prey 
As ever struck the elk at bay. 
—But thou shaft see him, if thou wilt 
Gaze on the wreck since made by guilt.— 

XXI. 

" Often she dared to cross the wave 

At midnight in the wildest weather, 
While tempests round the peak would rave 

From which she watch'd for nights together. 
For he, that tribesman whom I loved, 

Yes, loved as if he were my brother ; 
Had told her that the woods I roved 

To feed the lodge where dwelt another ; 
Another who now cherish' d there 
The child that claim'd a hunter's cate ; 
Claim'd it upon some distant shore, 
From which I would return no more. 

XXII. 

" All this in her had wrought no change, 

No anxious doubt, no jealous fear, 
But he meanwhile had words most strange, 
Breathed in my gentle nul-kaii's ear, 
Which made her wish that I were near : 
Words strange to her, who, simple, true, 
And only love as prosperous knew, 

Shrank from the fitful fantasy, 
Which seeming less like love than hate, 

Would cloud his moody brow when he, 
Gazing on her, arraign'd the fate 
Which could such loveliness create 

Only to work him misery. 
And when she heard that lying tale, 

Her woman's heart could soon discover 
Some double treachery might assail, 

Through him, her unsuspecting lover ; 
And Love in fear, now, fearless, brought her 
On errand Love in hope first taught her. 

XXIII. 

" I came at last. She ask'd me nought — 

It was enough to see me there ; 
But of the friend who thus had wrought, 
Though he now streams far distant sought, 
She bade me in the woods beware. 



A wound my coming had delay'd, 

And, still too weak to use my gun, 
I set the nets the old chief made ; 
Baited his traps in forest glade ; 
And sweetly after woo'd the maid 
At evening when my toils were done. 

XXIV. 

" 'T was then I chose a grassy swale, 

In which my wigwam frame to make ; 

Shelter'd by crags from northern gale, 

Shaded by boughs, save toward the lake. 
The Red-bird's nest above it swung; 
There often the Ma-ma-twa* sung ; 
There too, when Spring was backward, first 
Her shrinking blossoms safely burst ; 
And there, when autumn leaf was sere, 
Some flowers still stay'd the loitering year. 

XXV. 

" She learn'd full soon to love the spot, 
For who could see and love it not ? 
And there, when I the isle would leave, 

And sometimes now my gun resume, 
She'd shyly steal the mats to weave 

Which were to line our bridal room. 
Happy we were ! what love like ours, 

Blossoming thus as fresh and free, 
As unrestrain'd as wild-wood flowers, 
Yet keeping al? their purity ! 

XXVI. 

" Happy we were ! my secret foe, 

How dread a foe, I knew not then 
Remain'd to fish the streams below 
That into Cadaraqui flow, 
Returning to us only when 

Some kinsman on our bridal morn, 
ImpelFd by a mysterious doom 

Which with that fateful man was born, 

Brought him to shroud the day in gloom 
And blast our joys about to bloom. 

XXVII. 

"Just Manitou ! O may the boat 

That bears him to the spirit land 
For ages on those black waves float 

Which catch no light from off its strand. 
Float blindly there, still laboring on 

. Toward shores 'tis never doom'd to reach; 
Float there till time itself is gone, 

And when again 'twould seek the beach 
From which with that lone soul it started, 

Baffling let that before it flee, 
Till hope of rest hath all departed, 
And still when that last hope is gone, 
A guideless thing float on, float on ! 

* Vulgate, "Catbird." 



THE VIGIL OF FAITH. 11 


XXVIII. 


Nor how they loosed the lifeless maid 


" The birds of song had sunk to rest ; 


Stiffening within love's desperate clasp. 


The eagle's tireless wing was furl'd ; 


The sod upon her grave was green, 


On I.\<A-r.\ii-('iio's darkening breast 


The leaflet greening on the oak, 


The last few golden ripples curl'd ; 


The autumn and the winter o'er, 


The distant mountains, bright before^ 


When I once more to sense awoke, — 


Now seem'd to darken more and more 


Awoke to know some joys had been 


Against the eastern sky ; 


Which now to me could be no more. 


Until a white-pine's slender cone, 


Awoke to know that life to me 


Tapering above the hill-top, shone, 


Was henceforth but a girdled tree 


And show'd the moon was nigh. 


Whose tough limbs still must bide the blast 


Our friends, they all stood gravely round 


Until the trunk to earth be cast, 


Waiting until that moon should rise, 


Though fruit nor blossom ne'er can smile 


The bridal moon whose aspect crown'd 


Upon those wrestling limbs the while. 


For good or ill our destinies : 


XXXIII. 


The signal too, the hour had come, 


" He still was there, that youth accurst, 


When I could claim my bride and home. 


Who thus through blood his end had sought, 


XXIX. 


He who, with frenzied love athirst, 


"Blushing at that fast-brightening sky, 


Such wreck of loveliness had wrought. 


When on her father's lodge it shone, 


He still was there, for while I breathed, 


How did she shrink within, when I 


With sense and feeling almost gone — 


Would lead that loved one to my own ! 


The aged father, thus bereaved, 


Forth stepp'd e'en then that dismal guest 


Raving the wretch should still live on — 


Who grimly stood amid the rest, 


Of all our friends there was not one 


And, while his knife he drew, 


Would deal the vengeance they believed 


With cry that made us all aghast, 


'Twas mine on him to wreak alone. 


And frantic gesture hurrying past, 


XXXIV. 


He sprang the threshold through. 


" He still was there. 'Twas he that kept 


XXX. 


A nurse's watch while thus I slept : 


" A shriek ! and I with soul of flame 


Ever and ever by my side, 


Devour'd the fearful space between, 


With anxious eye and noiseless tread, 


Another and another came 


Hanging about my fever'd bed, 


E'en while my grip was on his throat, 


With none he would his task divide ; 


Where writhing in the dark unseen, 


Trembling, with jealous fears afraid, 


His victim in her gore did float ! 


When near the grave I seem'd to hover, 


And life was oozing through each wound 


Lest that bright land which claim'd the maid 


That gash'd her lovely form about, 


Was opening too upon her lover. 


When hurling him upon the ground, 


XXXV. 


I bore her to the light without. 


" And now, when no more languishing, 


XXXI. 


My mind and strength became renew'd, 


" Aided by that untimely beam, 


Amid the balmy airs of spring, 


Which harbinger'd such bridal woes, 


And I once more could take the wood ; 


I watch'd its ebbing current gleam, 


Think you he fear'd the bloody fate 


And watching would not, could not deem 


Which blood will alway expiate ? 


That blessed life's too precious stream 


Oh no ! he look'd too far before — 


Growing each moment darker, colder, 


Look'd far beyond this fleeting shore, 


E'en while I to my heart did fold her, 


Where bliss will die as soon as born ! 


Already at its close. 


He hoped, he blindly trusted, he, 


She tried to speak — then press'd my hand, 


That on the instant that I woke, 


And look'd — oh, look'd into my eyes 


Revenge would be so fierce in me, 


As if through them the spirit-land 


I'd madly deal some deathful stroke 


Would first upon her vision rise, 


Would send his soul where hers was gone ! 


As if her soul that could not stay 


XXXVI. 


Through mine might only pass away. 


" But I — I knew too well his guile, 


XXXII. 


'Twas whisper'd me in dreams the while, 


" I know not when that look did fade, ■ 


I saw a form about my bed, 


Nor when did fail that dying grasp, 


That alway shrunk from him with dread : 



12 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



'T would come by night, 'twould come by day, 
But clearest in the moonbeam show, 
Then alway as it nearer drew 
Ere melting from my wistful view, 
With palm reversed it seem'd to say, 
' If yet thou wilt not with me go, 
Keep him — Oh keep but him away ." 

XXXVII. 

" And did I not ? ay, while the knell 
Of youth and hope yet echo'd by, 
Did I not then allay thy fears, 
Perturbed soul, that his was nigh ? 

And o'er the waste of dreary years, 
On which heart-wither'd doom'd to dwell, 
I look with wearying vision back — 
Have I not on that desert track, 
Sweet spirit, kept love's vigil well ? 

Oh have I not ? Yes — though no more 
I see at night those moon-touch'd fingers, 
Still beckoning as they did of yore ; 

And though the features of my love, 
As near me still in dreams she lingers, 

Look bright, as yon bright star above, 
And peaceful, as in that blest time, 
When our young loves were in their prime — 
I know that, from the land of shades, 
When wandering thus to haunt these glades, 
The vigil to heT soul is dear 
I kept, and still am keeping here ! 
— Enough of this, thou still wouldst know 
How dealt I with my mortal foe ! 

XXXVIII. 

" The stag that snuffs the breeze of morn, 
Where first it lifts the birchen spray, 
Gazing on lakes all newly born 

From valley mists that roll away, 
Treads not the upland fern more free, 

Looks not with eye more bright below, 
Than moved and look'd that man, when he 
Strode forth and stood beneath the tree 

To bide my avenging hatchet's blow : 
The crestless doe, whose faint limbs sink 

Beside the rill to which they bore her — 
Life-stricken on its very brink 
That instant when she'd gasping drink 

From the bright wave that leaps before her- 
Lies not more lowly and forlorn, 

All stretch'd upon the forest leaves, 
Than near the tree that Outcast lay, 
When, by that gleaming hatchet shorn, 
His warrior-tuft is cleft away, 

And he the living doom receives 
To wander thus where'er he may, 
Of woman and of man the scorn.* 



* In some tribes, when the penalty of death is thus changed 
for that of degradation, the criminal who so regains his for- 
feited life is considered as unsexed. He then becomes the 



XXXIX. 

"A month went by ; the wigwam's smoke 

No more from that cold hearth ascended 
Where the old chief no longer woke 

To woes that with his life were ended : 
A month, and that deserted isle 

Was left alone to me and her ! 
The summer had begun to smile, 

The winds of June the leaves to stir, 
And flowers, that budded late the while, 
To bloom above her sepulchre : 
Meek, pallid things, grave-nursed below, 
That feebly there as yet would grow, 
Brighter in coming years to blow — 
And where was he whose fell despair 
The Flower of Love laid bleeding there ? 

XL. 

" Shooting from out the leafy land, 

Right opposite our island home, 
There was a narrow neck of sand, 
O'er which the wave, on either hand, 

Would fling at times its crest of foam. 
And here — as I one morning stood 

Upon a rock which faced that beach — 
I saw, wild rushing from the wood, 
Within my loaded rifle's reach, 
A figure that distracted ran 

Until it gain'd the frothy marge, 
And there, an unarm'd, kneeling man, 
Bare his broad bosom to my charge ! 
XLI. 
" I stood, but did not raise the gun — 

Although it rattled in my grasp — 
I stood and coldly look'd upon 

The suppliant, who, still lower bent, 

His hands in agony did clasp, 
As if the soul within him pent 
Would rend its penal tenement. 
At last, with low half smother'd cry 

" And quivering frame, he gain'd his feet, 
And to the woods began to fly, 

Growing at every step more fleet : 
But from that hour where'er he fled, 
As fleetly I too followed ! 
XLII. 
" One moment was enough to bind 

Firmly my weapons on my head, 
The strait was swum, and far behind 
The crested waves effaced my tread 



menial and slave of the first person who chooses to take 
possession of hiin, and is obliged to submit to tasks of ex- 
posure the most toilsome, and domestic offices the most 
humiliating ; his master or owner (or husband, as he is 
sometimes whimsically called) being permitted to exercise 
every species of tyrannical cruelty upon him, provided he 
shed not the blood of the poor wretch who is thus subjected 
to his caprices. See Schoolcraft; see also "The Equa- 
wish,' in ' Life on the Lakes,' by the Author of ' Legends of a 
Log Cabin.' 



THE VIGIL OF FAITH. 



13 



Upon tho beach, o'er which I sped 
So swiftly that the forest glade 
At once the wanderer's trail bctray'd. 
And though it led o'er rocky ledge, 
Led oft within the pool's black' edge, 

'Twas soon rcveal'd anew — 
The springy moss just crisping back, 
I saw upon his recent track, 
Nor paused to trace it in the brook, 
Whose alders still behind him shook 

Where he had bounded through. 

XLIII. 

"And — when again the stream he cross'd, 
Where in its forks, awhile I lost 
His trail, amid the maze 
Of severing rills, and run-ways wound 
About the deer-lick's trampled ground — 
The very living things around, 
Which in these forest depths abound, 
The sable darting from the fern, 
The gliding ermine — each in turn 
His whereabout betrays : 
From plunging beaver's warning stroke, 
From wood-duck whirring from the oak, 
And screaming loon, alike I learn 

Where lead the wanderer's ways. 

XLIV. 

" At length within a broken dell, 

Where a gnarl'd beech the tempest's shock 
Had parted from the leaning rock, 
Among its cable roots, he fell ; 

Where, panting, soon I saw him lie, 
Shrivelling against the blasted trunk 

With knees drawn up and cowering eye, 
As my avenging tread had shrunk 

The miscreant there as I drew nigh. 
I spoke not — but I gazed upon 
That wolf with fangs and courage gone, 
Gazed on his quailing features till 

Their furtive glance was fix'd by mine, 
And I could see his writhing will 

Her feeble throne to me resign. 

XLV. 

" He rose an abject, broken man, 
He dared not fight — he dared not fly, 

His very life in my veins ran, 
Who would not let him cast it by ! 
And still he is the thing that then 
He wilted to, within that glen : 

Living — if life be drawing breath — 
But dead in all that last should die, 

For him there is no farther death 
Till from the earth he withereth. 

XLVI. 

" I hunt for him — I dress his food, 
I guide his footsteps in the wood, 

B : 



Or, when alone for game I 'd beat, 

Direct where we at night shall meet. 

He cleans my arms — my snow-shoes makes ; 

He bales my shallop on the lakes ; 

And when with fishing-spear I glide 

At midnight o'er the silent tide, 

'T is he who holds the pine-knot torch, 

"That seems her blazing path to scorch 

Where waves o'er reddening shoals divide. 

XLVII. 

" With me he now is alway meek, 

But sometimes, chafing in his thrall, 
He to my dog will sharply speak, 

Who comes, or comes not at his call. 
They both are in my camp below, 

From which I now in hunting weather 
For days can often safely go, 

Leaving the two alone together. 
But in those years my watch began 

His limbs were agile as my own, 
And sometimes then the tortured man, 

For weeks beyond my search hath flown, 

In shades more deep to breathe alone. 

XLVIII. 

" Yet ever in his wildest mood, 

He would some mystic power obey, 
Which from that island's haunted wood 

Ne'er let him wander far away, 
And always soon or late I could 
Steal on him in his solitude : 
While oft, as weaker grew his brain, 
And he forgot God's law of blood, 
I 've track'd the poor, bewilder'd thing, 
Wherever he was famishing ; 
And snatch'd him o'er and o'er again, 

From death he sought by fell and flood. 

XLIX. 

"And thus, as crowding seasons changed, 

When many a year was dead and gone, 
I round these lakes in manhood ranged, 
Where yet in age I wander on, 

And still o'er that poor slave I've kept 

A vigil that hath never slept ; 
And while upon this earth I stay, 
From her I '11 still keep him away — 
From her whom I at last shall see 
My own, my own eternally ! 

L. 

"White man ! I say not that they lie 

Who preach a faith so dark and drear, 
That wedded hearts in yon cold sky 
Meet not as they were mated here. 
But scorning not thy faith, thou must 
Stranger, in mine have equal trust ; 
The Red man's faith by Him implanted, 
Who souls to both our races granted. 



14 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



Thou know'st in life we mingle not, 
Death cannot change our different lot ! 
He who hath placed the White man's heaven 
Where hymns in vapoury clouds are chanted, 
To harps by angel fingers play'd ; 
Not less on his Red children smiles 
To whom a land of souls is given, 

Where in the ruddy west array'd, . 
Brighten our blessed hunting isles. 

LI. 

"There souls again to youth are born, 

A youth that knows no withering ! 
There, blithe and bland, the breeze of morn 

Fresheneth an eternal Spring 
Mid trees, and flowers and waterfalls, 
And fountains bubbling from the moss, 
And leaves that quiver with delight, 
As from their shade the warbler calls, 
Or, choiring, glances to the light 
On wings which never lose their gloss : 
There brooks that bear their buds away, . 
From branches that will bend above them, 
So closely they could not but love them, 
To the same bowers again will stray 

From which at first they murmuring sever, 
Still floating back their blossoms to them, 
Still with the same sweet music ever, 
Returning yet once more to woo them : 

There love, like bird and brook and blossom, 
Is young for ever in each bosom ! 

LII. 

" Those blissful Islands of the West ! 

I've seen, myself, at sunset time, 
The golden lake in which they rest ; 
Seen too the barks that bear The Blest 



Floating toward that fadeless clime : 
First dark, just as they leave our shore, 
Their sides then brightening more and more, 
Till in a flood of crimson light 
They melted from my straining sight. 
And she, who climb'd the storm-swept steep, 
She who the foaming wave would dare, 
So oft love's vigil here to keep — 

Stranger, albeit thou think'st I dote, 
I know — I know she watches there ! 
Watches upon that radiant strand, 

Watches to see her lover's boat 
Approach The Spirit-Land." 

LIII. 

He ceased, and spoke no more that night, 

Though oft, when chillier blew the blast, 
I saw him moving in the light 

The fire, that he was feeding, cast; 
While I, still wakeful, ponder'd o'er 
His wondrous story more and more. ■ 
I thought, not wholly waste the mind 
Where Faith so deep a root could find, 
Faith which both love and life could save, 
And keep the first, in age still fond, 
Thus blossoming this side the grave 

In steadfast trust of fruit beyond. 
And when in after years I stood 

By Inca-pah-cho's haunted water, 
Where long ago that hunter woo'd 

In early youth its island daughter, 
And traced the voiceless solitude 

Once witness of his loved one's slaughter — 
At that same season lof the leaf 
In which I heard him tell his grief- — 
I thought some day I 'd weave in rhyme 
That tale of mellow autumn time. 



SONGS -EROS AND ANTEIIOS. 



f" Love, With the ancient sascs, if he he not twin-born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called A ntcros; whom 
while he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and feigning desires that wander singly up and down in 
ness, By them, in their borrowed garb, is Love often deceived) partly that his eye is not the quickest in this 
dark region here below (fvhich is not Love's proper sphere), partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native 
to bim, and embraces and consorts him with those suborned striplings as if they were his mother's own sons. But after 
awhile, soaring ahove the shadow of the earth, he discerns that this is not his genuine brother as he imagined ; he has 
to hpld fellowship with such a personated mate. For that original and fiery virtue given him by fate 
all on a Budden goes out and leaves bim undeified and despoiled of all his force; till finding Anteros at last, he kindles 
and repairs the almost faded ammunition of his deity by the reflection of a coequal and homogencal fire." Milton.] 



They arc mockery all — those skies, those skies- 

Tlicir untroubled depths of blue — 
They are mockery all — these eyes, these eyes, 

Which seem so warm and true. ' 
Each tranquil star in the one that lies, 
Each meteor glance that at random flies 

The other's lashes through ; 
They are mockery all, these flowers of spring, 

Which her airs so softly woo — 
And the love to which we would madly cling, 

Ay! it is mockery too; 
The winds are false which the perfume stir, 

And the looks deceive to which we sue, 
And love but leads to the sepulchre, 

Which the flowers spring to strew. 

II. 

Why seek her heart to understand, 

If but enough thou knowest 

To prove that all thy love, like sand, 

Upon the wind thou throwest ? 
The ill thou makest out at last 
Doth but reflect the bitter past, 
While all the good thou learnest yet 
But makes her harder to forget. 

What matters all the nobleness 
Which in her breast resideth, 
And what the warmth and tenderness 

Her mien of coldness hideth 
If but ungenerous thoughts prevail 
When thou her bosom wouldst assail, 
While tenderness and warmth doth ne'er 
By any chance, toward thee appear ? 

Sum up each token thou hast won 
Of kindred feeling: there — 



How few for Hope to build upon, 

How many for Despair ! 
And if e'er word or look deelareth 
Love or aversion, which she bearcth, 
While of the first, no proof thou hast, 
How many are there of the last ! 

Then strive no more to understand 
Her heart, of which thou knowest 

Enough to prove thy love, like sand, 
Upon the wind thou throwest : 

The ill thou makest out at last 

Doth but reflect the bitter past, 

While all the good thou learnest yet 

But makes her harder to forget. 

III. 

Those eyes — those eyes — I watch them so 
While radiant with soul they glow, 
To see if one kind glance of feeling 
For me is ever from them stealing; 
If ever one fond thought arise 
To fill with tenderness those eyes, 

Sometimes a single beaming look 
Will make my pulses leap like brook 
Which bounds to meet the sunshine sparkling 
Through alders long its current darkling — 
Then like that brook in deepening glade 
They 're given again to gloom and shade. 

Those e3 r es — those eyes — oh, I '11 no more 
Their cold and fitful light adore ! 
The flash of mind that's to them given 
Is but a borrow'd ray from Heaven ; 
And not the soft impassion'd glow 
To warm its worshippers below. 



15 



16 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



IV. 
'Tis hard to share her smiles with many! 

And while she is so dear to me, 
To fear that I, far less than any, 

Call out her spirit's witchery ! 
To find my inmost heart when near her 

Trembling at every glance and tone, 
And feel the while each charm grow dearer 

That will not beam for me alone. 

How can she thus, sweet spendthrift, squander 

The treasures one alone can prize ! 
How can her eyes to all thus wander, 

When 1 but live in those sweet eyes ! 
Those syren tones so lightly spoken 

Cause many a heart I know to thrill ; 
But mine, and only mine, till broken, 

In every pulse must answer still. 

V. 

Ay ! there it is, that winning smile, 

That look that cheats my heart for ever, 
That tone that will my brain beguile 

Till reason from her seat shall sever. 
All, all bewitching, as when last 

I for the twentieth time forswore them, 
Resistless as when first I cast 

My whole adoring soul before them. 

Like carrier doves that hurry back 

To the bright home from which they 're parted, 
However blind may be their track 

Or far the goal from which they started, — 
So from Love's jesses if e'er free 

I set my thoughts one moment roving, 
Somehow the very nest in thee 

They always find their home of loving. 

VI. 

She loves — but 'tis not me she loves: — 

Not me on whom she ponders, 
When in some dream of tenderness 

Her truant fancy wanders. 
The forms that flit her visions through 

Are like the shapes of old, 
Where tales of Prince and Paladin 

On tapestry are told. 
Man may not hope her heart to win, 

Be his of common mould ! 

Rut I — though spurs are won no more 

Where herald's trump is pealing, 
Nor thrones carved out for ' ladye fayre ' 

Where steel-clad ranks are wheeling — 
I loose the falcon of my hopes 

Upon as proud a flight 
As they who hawk'd at high renown, 

In song-ennobled fight 
If daring then true love may crown, 

My love she must requite ! 



VII. 

Like one who, on some clouded night, 

When wind and tide attend his bark, 
Waits for the pole-star's steady light 

To shine above the waters dark, 
Will often for its guiding beam 

Mistake some wandering meteor's ray, 
But wilder'd by that fitful gleam 
Doubt yet to launch upon the stream, 

Till wind and tide have passed away, — 

So I, if ever Life's dark sea 

Is swept by some propitious gale, 
Look for my guiding light in thee, 

Before I e'er can spread my sail ; 
So, while thy smiles deceitful shine, 

Then leave all darker than before, 
I for some surer beacon pine, 
Till breeze and flood no longer mine, 

I'm stranded on the barren shore. 

VIII. 

I will love her no more! — 'tis a waste of the heart, 
This lavish of feeling — a prodigal's part — 
Who, heedless, the treasure a life could not earn 
Squanders forth where he vainly m ay look for i eturn. 

I will love her no more — it is folly to give 
Our best years to one, when for many we live. 
And he who the world will thus barter for one, 
I ween by such traffic must soon be undone. 

I will love her no more — it is heathenish thus 

To bow to an idol which bends not to us : 

Which heeds not, which hears not, which recks not 

for aught, 
That the worship of years to its altar hath brought. 

I will love her no more — for no love is without 
Its limit in measure, and mine hath run out, 
She engrosseth it all, and till some she restore, 
Than this moment I love her — how can I love more ? 

IX. 

I lied — ah yes, I lied like saucy page — 

Singing that more than now I could not love thee ! 

Others, like me, may, at thy budding age, 

Hold every feeling in sweet vassalage 

Unto thy charms. But I — by all above me ! — 
Will prove thee suzerain of my soul more nearly ; 

When Time his arts shall 'gainst thy beauty wage, 
To break their serfdom — serving thee more dear. ; y, 

Mark how the sunset, with its parting hues, 
The heaving bosom of yon river staineth ! 
To yield those tints the grieving waves refuse, 
Nor yet that purpling light at last will lose 

Till Night itself, like Death, above them reigneth !' 
So more and more will brighten to the last 
The light, which once upon my true soul cast, 
Reflected there, still true till death remaineth. 



SONGS— EROS AND ANTEROS. 



17 



I do not love thee — by my word I do not! 
I do not love thee — tor thy love I sue not 
And yet, I fear, there's hardly one that wearcth 
Thy beauty's chains, who like me for thee carcth: 
Who joys like me when in thy joy believing — 
Who like me grieves when thou dost .see in but griev- 
ing. 
Hut, though I charms so perilous eschew not, 
I do not love thec — trust me that I do not ! 

I do not love thee ! — pr'ythcc why so coy, then ? 
Doth it thy maiden bashfulncss annoy, then ? 
Sith the heart's homage still will be up-welling, 
Where Truth and Goodness have so sweet a dwell- 
ing? 
Suroly, unjust one, I were, less than mortal, 
Knelt I not thus before that temple's portal. 
Others dare to love thee — dare what I do not — 
Then let me worship, bright one, while I woo not! 

XI. 

I know thou dost love mc — ay ! frown as thou wilt, 

And curl that beautiful lip 
Which I never gaze on without the guilt 

Of burning its dew to sip : 
I know that my heart is reflected in thine, 
And, like flowers that over a brook incline, 

They toward each other dip. 

Though thou lookest so cold in these halls of light, 

Mid the careless, proud, and gay, 
I will steal like a thief in thy heart at night, 

And pilfer its thoughts away. 
I will come in thy dreams at the midnight hour, 
And thy soul in secret shall own the power 

It dares to mock by day. 

XII. 
I ask not what shadow came over her heart, 

In t!ip moment I thought her my own — 
If love in that moment could really depart, 

I mourn not such love when 't is flown. 
I ask not what shadow came over her then, 

What doubt did her bosom appnl, 
For I know where her heart will turn truly again, 

If it ever turn truly at all ! 

It is not at once that the reed-bird takes wing, 

When the tide rises high round her nest, 
But again and again, floating back, she will sing 

O'er the spot where her love-treasures rest: 
And oh, when the surge of distrust would invade, 

Where the heart hoped for ever to dwell, 
Love long upon loitering pinion is stay'd, 

Ere his wing waves a mournful farewell. 

XIII. 

I waited for thee — but all restless waited, 
For soul like mine it ever must be moving; 



B2 



I knew one spirit with my own was mated, 

Yet I mistook that restlessness for loving : 
Of mine own nature an ideal created, 
And loved because I only thus was fated. 

Fated, bewildcr'd thus in thought and feeling, 
To waste the freshness of my soul away, 

To sec each bud of spring in turn revealing 
But canker'd blooms upon a fruitless spray, — 

Why marvel then in prayer I oft am kneeling, 

Sweet minister of grace ! to bless thy spirit-healing? 

XIV. 

Do I not love thec ? Thou knowest I do ; 

And even while feigning to doubt mc, 
Thou knowest my heart is so tender and true 

It would wither in heaven without thec. 
Then why, while the spirit of bliss is abroad 

In the blue of the sky and the balm of the flowers, 
Should the demon Distrust with his visage abhorr'd 

Scare affection from hearts so united as ours ? 
Do I not love thee ! — Oh think but how long 

Has the soul that should kindle for glory 
Been wasted away in the breath of a song, 

Consuming alone to adore thee. 
Then why, dearest, why should a cloud of distrust 

Come thy love-breathing censer to smother, 
When thou knowest my soul, if once dimm'd by 
thee, must 

Be silent and cold to each other ? 

XV. 

Nay, plead not thou art dull to-night, 

When I can see tho tear-drop stealing, 
Soft witness to love's watchful sight, 

Some lurking grief within revealing. 
Wouldst thou so cheat the friend thou lovest 

Of half the wealth he owns in thee ? 
Why, sweet one, by that smile thou provest 

Thy tears as well belong to me ! 

Ah, tears again! — well, let them flow, 

In tenderness thus flow for ever, 
Those last upon my breast I know 

Fresh from affection's fruitful river. 
What ! smiles once more ! — Sweet April wonder, 

Thy sun and rain thou wilt not miss ; 
Why should not I then have my thunder, 

And melt each bolt into a kiss? 

XVI. 

Life seems to thee more earnest, dearest ! 

And is it not the same with me ? 
Why, sweet, each shadow that thou fearest 

To me becomes reality — 
A thought — a pang to mar my gladness, 
And cloud my brow with tender sadness — 

And all of loving thee ! 

The jest from which thou often turnest 
Is only love's fond thoughtless guile, 



18 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



And comes from heart in love most earnest 

When it would make thee smile — 
Is but the stream's bright circles breaking 
Above thy dropping griefs — which aching 
My bosom holds the while. 

XVII. 

Thou ask'st me why that thought of death 

Should rise within our souls the same — 
Why now, when dearest grows each breath 

Of life, we shrink not at his name '! 
What is it, sweet, but faith in each 

The other could not live alone ? 
What but the wish at once to reach 

The land where change is never known ? 

As, parted here, we dare not think 

Of wearying years to come between, 
Nay, start not, love, as on the brink 

Of what may be — as it hath been — 
We only part like twin-born rays 

Diverging from the morning sun, 
Again within his orb to blaze 

When fused in heaven into one. 

XVIII. 

Ask me not why I should love her, 

Look upon those soul-full eyes ! 
Look while mirth or feeling move her, 

And see there how sweetly rise 
Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast 
Which is of innocence the nest — 
Which, though each joy were from it shred, 
By truth would still be tenanted ! 

See from those sweet windows peeping, 

Emotions tender, bright, and pure, 
And wonder not the faith I 'm keeping 

Every trial can endure ! 
Wonder not that looks so winning 
Still for me new ties are spinning ; 
Wonder not that heart so true 
Keeps mine from ever changing too. 

XIX. 

Where dost thou loiter, Spring, 

Whilst it behoveth 
Thee to cease wandering 

Where'er thou roveth, 
And to my lady bring 

The flowers she loveth. 

Come with thy melting skies 
Like her cheek blushing, 

Come with thy dewy eyes 
Where founts are gushing ; 

Come where the wild bee hies 
When dawn is flushing. 

Lead her where by the brook 
The first blossom keepeth, 



Where, in the shelter'd nook, 

The callow budsleepeth; 
Or with a timid look 

Through its leaves peepeth. 

Lead her where on the spray 

Blithely carolling, 
First birds their roundelay 

For my lady sing — 
But keep, where'er she stray, 

True-love blossoming. 

XX. 

While he thou lovest were not the same 
If scatheless all from passion's flame, 
Wouidst thou the temper'd steel forego 
At thought of what hath made it so ? 
Wouidst thou have bann'd the sun to shine 
In spring upon thy chosen pine, 
And dwarf'd the stature of the tree 
That thus had never shelter'd thee ? 

Think'st thou the dream by fancy sent, 
The fervor by wild passion lent — 
Think'st thou the wandering tenderness 
That yearns each loving heart to bless — 
That either, or that all can be 
The love my soul still kept for thee ? 
Still faithful kept, till thou or death 
Should come to claim her inmost breath ! 

XXI. 

Sleeping ! why now sleeping ? 
The moon herself looks gay, 

While through thy lattice peeping ; 
Wilt not her call obey ? 

Wake, love, each star is keeping 
For thee its brightest ray ; 

And languishes the gleaming 

From fire-flies now streaming 
Athwart the dewy spray. 

Awake, the skies are weeping 
Because thou art away, 

But if of me thou 'rt dreaming, 
Sleep, loved one, while you may ; 

And music's wings shall hover 

Softly thy sweet dreams over, 
Fanning dark thoughts away, 

While, dearest, 'tis thy lover 
Who '11 bid each bright one stay. 

XXII. 

Thoughts— wild thoughts ! oh why will ye wander, 

Wander away from the task that's before ye ? 
Heart — weak heart ! oh why art thou fonder, 

Fonder of her than ever of glory ? 
What though the laurel for thee hath no glitter, 

What though thy soul never yearn'd for a name : 
When did Love garland a brow that was fitter 

To wake in Love's bosom the wild wish of fame ? 



SONGS — EROS AND ANTEROS. 



19 



Doth she Dot watch o'er thins every endeavor ' 

Leans not her heart in warm faith on thine own? 
If thou Bit doubting and dreaming fi>r ever, 

Too late thou '11 discover that her dream is flown ! 
Ay ! though each thought that "is tender and glow- 
ing 

Hath yet no errand, save only to her — 
She may forget thee, while time is thus flowing; 

Thou waste thy worship — fond idolater ! 

XXIV. 

« 

Think of me, dearest, when day is breaking 

Away from the sable chains of night, 
When the sun, his ocean-couch forsaking, 
Like b giant first in his strength awaking, 

1- flinging abroad his limbs of light; 
As the breeze that first travels with morning forth, 
(Jiving life to iier steps o'er the quickening earth — 
As the dream that lias cheated thy soul through the 

night, 
Let me come fresh in thy thoughts with the light. 

Think of me, dearest, when day is sinking 

In the soft embrace of twilight gray, 
When the starry eyes of heaven are winking, 
And the weary flowers their tears are drinking, 
As they start like gems on the star-lit spray. 
Let mc come warm in thy thoughts at eve, 
As the glowing track which the sunbeams leave, 
When they, blushing, tremble along the deep 
While stealing away to their place of sleep. 

Think of mc, dearest, when round thee smiling 
Arc eyes that melt while they gaze on thee ; 

When words are winning and looks are wiling, 

And those words and looks, of others, beguiling 
Thy fluttering heart from love and me. 

Let mc come true in thy thoughts in that hour ; 

Let my trust and my faith — my devotion — have 
power, 

When all that can lure to thy young soul is nearest, 

To summon each truant thought back to me, 
dearest. 

XXV. 

Why should I murmur lest she may forget me ? 

Why should I grieve to be by her forgot? 
Better, then, wish that she had never met me, 

Better, oh far, she should remember not ! 

Yet that sad wish — oh, would it not come o'er her 
Knew she the heart on which she now relies? 

Strong it is only in beating to adore her — 
Faint in the moment her loved image flies ! 

Why should I murmur lest she may forget me ? 

Would I not rather be remember'd not 
Ere have her grieve that she had ever met me ? 

7 only suffer if I am forgot ! 

B 



XXVI. 

"Trust in thee?" Ay, dearest! there's no one but 

must, 
Unless truth be a fable, in such as thee trust ! 
For who can see heaven's own hue in those eyes, 
And doubt that truth with it came down from the 

skies ; 
While each thought of thy bosom, like morning's 

young light, 
Almost ere 't is born, flashes there on his sight ? 

" Trust in thee ?" Why, bright one, thou couldst 

not betray, 
While thy heart and thine eyes are for ever at play ! 
And he who unloving can study the one, 
Is so certain to be by the other undone, 
That if he care aught for his quiet, he must, 
Like me, my own dearest, in both of them trust. 

XXVII. 

They say that thou art alter'd, Amy, 

They say that thou no more 
Dost keep within thy bosom, Amy, 

The faith that once it wore ; 
They tell me that another now 

Doth thy young heart assail ; 
They tell me, Amy, too, that thou 

Dost smile on his love tale. 

But I — I heed them not, my Amy, 

Thy heart is like my own ; 
And still enshrined in mine, my Amy, 

Thine image lives alone : 
Whate'er a rival's hopes have fed, 

Thy soul cannot be moved 
Till he shall plead as I have plead, 

And love as I have loved. 

XXVIII. 

Take back then thy pledges, — and peace to that 

heart 
In which faith like a shadow can come and depart! 
From which love, that seems cherish' d most fondly 

to-day, 
Is cast, without grieving, to-morrow away. 

Such a heart it may sadden mine own to resign, 
But it never was mated to mingle with mine. 
Love another ! Nay, shrink not — more wisely thou 

wilt 
If truth to thy plighted in thine eyes be guilt. 

I claim not, I ask not one thought in thy breast 
While that thought brings misgiving and doubt to 

the rest. 
If the heart that thus fails thee can bid me depart, 
Take back all love's pledges, — and peace to that 

heart ! 



20 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



XXIX. 

They tell me that my trusting heart 

Thy fondness is deceived in ; 
They say that thou all faithless art 

Whom I so well believed in ! 
I heed not, reck not what they say 

So earnestly about thee ; 
I 'd rather trust my soul away 

Than for one moment doubt thee. 

Like mine thy youth was early lost ; 

Thy vows too rashly plighted ; 
Thy budding life by wintry frost 

Of grief untimely, blighted. 
Devotion is most deep and pare 

In souls by sorrow shaded, 
And love like ours will still endure 

When brighter ties have faded. 

XXX. 

Alas ! if she be false to me 

It is for her alone I weep ! 
'T is that in coming years I see 
Her sufferings from such frailty 

Than mine, oh, far more deep ! 

So tender, yet so false withal, 

So proud, and yet so frail, 
Responding to each flatterer's call, 
Loving, yet often blind to all 

Of love that could not fail — 

Oh who will watch her wayward soul, 

Who minister when I am gone, 
Who point her spirit to its goal, 
Who with unwearying love console 
That truth-abandon'd one ? 

XXXI. 

Withering — withering — all are withering — 

All of hope's flowers that youth hath nursed ; 
Flowers of love too early blossoming ; 

Buds of ambition, too frail to burst. 
Faintily — faintily — oh ! how faintily 

I feel life's pulses ebb and flow : 
Yet, Sorrow, I know thou dealest daintily 

AVith one who should not wish to live moe. 

Nay ! why, young heart, thus timidly shrinking ? 

Why doth thy upward wing thus tire ? 
Why are thy pinions so droopingly sinking, 

When they should only waft thee higher ? 



Upward — upward, let them be waving 

Lifting thy soul toward her place of birth : 

There are guerdons there more worth thy having, 
Far more than any these lures of earth. 

XXXII. 

I knew not how I loved thee — no ! 

I knew it not till all was o'er — 
Until thy lips had told me so — 

Had told me I must love no more ! 
I knew not how I loved thee !— yet 

I long had- loved thee wildly well ; 
I thought 'twere easy to forget — 

I thought a word would break the spell : 

And even when that word was spoken, 

Ay ! even till the very last, 
I thought, that spell of faith once broken, 

I could not long lament the past. 
O, foolish heart ! O, feeble brain, 

That love could thus deceive — subdue ! 
Since hope cannot revive again, 

Why cannot memory perish too ? 

XXXIII. 

The conflict is over, the struggle is past, 

I have look'd — I have loved — I have worshipp'd my 

last; 
And now back to the world, and let fate do her 

worst 
On the heart that for thee such devotion hath 

nursed — 
To thee its best feelings were trusted away, 
And life hath hereafter not one to betray. 

Yet not in resentment thy love I resign ; 
I blame not — upbraid not, one motive of thine ; 
I ask not what change has come over thy heart, 
I reck not what chances have idoom'd us to part ; 
I but know thou hast told me to love thee no more, 
And I still must obey where I once did adore. 

Farewell, then, thou loved one — oh ! loved but too 

well, 
Too deepty, too blindly, for language to tell — 
Farewell ! thou hast trampled love's faith in the 

dust. 
Thou hast torn from my bosom its hope and its 

trust ! 
But if thy life's current with bliss it would swell, 
I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell ! 



SONGS-MISCELLANEOUS. 



SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. 

Sparkling and bright in liquid light 

Docs the wine our goblets gleam in, 
With hue as red as the rosy bed 

Which a bee would choose to dream in. 
Then fill to-night with hearts as light, 

To loves as gay and fleeting 
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, 
Anid break on the lips while meeting. 

Oh ! if Mirth might arrest the flight 
Of Time through Life's dominions, 
We here awhile would now beguile 
The gray-beard of his pinions 

To drink to-night with hearts as light, 

To loves as gay and fleeting 
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, 
And break on the lips while meeting. 

But since delight can't tempt the wight, 

Nor fond regret delay him, 
Nor Love himself can hold the elf, 
Nor sober Friendship stay him, 

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, 

To loves as gay and fleeting 
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, 
And break on the lips while meeting. 



ROSALIE CLARE. 

Who owns not she 's peerless — who calls her not 

fair — 
Who questions the beauty of Rosalie Clare ? 
Let him saddle his courser and spur to the field, 
And though harness'd in proof, he must perish or 

yield ; 
For no gallant can splinter — no charger may dare 
The lance that is couch'd for young Rosalie Clare. 

When goblets are flowing, and wit at the board 
Sparkles high, while the flood of the red grape is 

pour'd, 
And fond wishes for fair ones around offer'd up 
From each lip that is wet with the dew of the cup, — 
What name on the brimmer floats oftener there, 
Or is whisper'd more warmly, than Rosalie Clare ? 



They may talk of the land of the olive and vine — 
Of the maids of the Ebro, the Arno, or Rhine ; — 
Of the Houris that gladden the East with their 

smiles, 
Where the sea's studded over with green summer 

isles ; 
But what flower of far away clime can compare 
With the blossom of ours — bright Rosalie Clare ? 

Who owns not she's peerless — who calls her not 

fair? 
Let him meet but the glances of Rosalie Clare ! 
Let him list to her voice — let him gaze on her 

form — 
And if, hearing and seeing, his soul do not warm, 
Let him go breathe it out in some less happy air 
Than that which is bless'd by sweet Rosalie Clare. 



THE INVITATION. 

Wend, love, with me, to the deep woods wend, 

Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, 
Where no watching eye shall over us bend, 

Save the blossoms that into thy bower peep. 
Thou shalt gather from buds of the oriole's hue, 

Whose flaming wings round our pathway flit, 
From the saffron orchis and lupin blue, 

And those like the foam on my courser's bit. 

One steed and one saddle us both shall bear, 

One hand of each on the bridle meet ; 
And beneath the wrist that entwines me there, 

An answering pulse from my heart shall beat. 
I will sing thee many a joyous lay, 

As we chase the deer by the blue lake-side, 
While the winds that over the prairie play 

Shall fan the cheek of my woodland bride. 

Our home shall be by the cool, bright streams, 

Where the beaver chooses her safe retreat, 
And our hearth shall smile like the sun's warm 
gleams 

Through the branches around our lodge that 
meet. 
Then wend with me, to the deep woods wend, 

Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, 
Where no watching eye shall over us bend, 

Save the blossoms that into thy bower peep. 



21 



22 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



THE MINT JULEP. 
'Tis said that the gods, on Olympus of old 

(And who the bright legend profanes with a 
doubt), 
One night, mid their revels, by Bacchus were told 
That his last butt of nectar had somehow run 
out! 

But determined to send round the goblet once more, 
They sued to the fairer immortals for aid 

In composing a draught, which, till drinking were 
o'er, « 
Should cast every wine ever drank in the shade. 

Grave Ceres herself blithely yielded her corn, 
And the spirit that lives in each amber-hued 
grain, 
And which first had its birth from the dew of the 
morn, 
Was taught to steal out in bright dewdrops again. 

Pomona, whose choicest of fruits on the board 
Were scatter'd profusely in every one's reach, 

When call'd on a tribute to cull from the hoard, 
Express'd the mild juice of the delicate peach. 

The liquids were mingled while Venus look'd on 
With glances so fraught with sweet magical 
power, 
That the honey of Hybla, e'en when they were gone, 
Has never been miss'd in the draught from that 
hour. 

Flora then, from her bosom of fragrancy, shook, 
And with roseate fingers press'd down in the 
bowl, 

All dripping and fresh as it came from the brook, 
The herb whose aroma should flavor the whole. 

The draught was delicious, and loud the acclaim, 
Though something seemed wanting for all to be- 
wail; 

But Juleps the drink of immortals became, 
When Jove himself added a handful of hail. 



WAKE, LADY, WAKE. 

WRITTEN FOR AN AIR IN DER FREISCHUTZ. 

Wake, Lady, wake ! the stars on high 

Are twinkling in the vaulted sky, 

The dewdrops on the leafy spray 

Are trembling in the moon's cold ray ; 

But what to me are dewy skies, 

And moon and stars, unless thine eyes 

Will waken, to rival the heaven's blue, 

And the stars and moon in their brightness too ? 

Wake, Lady, wake ! the murmuring breeze 
Is soft among the swaying trees ; 
And with the sound of brooks is heard 
The note of evening's lonely bird : 



But thy loved voice is sweeter far, 
Than whispering woods, or breezes are, 
Or the silver sound of the tinkling rill, 
Or the plaintive call of the whippoorwill. 

Wake, Lady, or my heart alone 

Will like a lute that's lost its tone 

To nature's touch refuse to sound, 

While all her works rejoice around : 

How can I prize the brightest spot, 

If I am there, but thou art not ? 

Then while through thy lattice the moonbeams 

break, 
'T is thy lover that calls thee, wake, Lady, wake ! 



THE MYRTLE AND STEEL. 

One bumper yet, gallants, at parting, 

One toast ere we arm for the fight ; 
Fill round, each to her he loves dearest — 

'Tis the last he may pledge her, to-night ! 
Think of those who of old at the banquet 

Did their weapons in garlands conceal, 
The patriot heroes who hallow'd 

The entwining of Myrtle and Steel ! 

Then hey for the Myrtle and Steel, 

Then ho for the Myrtle and Steel, 
Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid 

Fill a round to the Myrtle and Steel. 

'Tis in moments like this, when each bosom 

With its highest-toned feeling is warm, 
Like the music that's said from the ocean 

To rise ere the gathering storm,* 
That her image around us should hover, 

Whose name, though our lips ne'er reveal, 
We may breathe through the foam of a bumper, 

As we drink to the Myrtle and Steel. 

Then hey for the Myrtle and Steel, 

Then ho for the Myrtle and Steel, 
Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid 

Fill a round to the Myrtle and Steel. 

Now mount, for our bugle is ringing 

To marshal the host for the fray, 
Where our flag, to the firmament springing, 

Flames over the battle array : 
Yet, gallants — one moment — remember, 

When your sabres the death-blow would deal, 
That mercy wears her shape who 's cherish'd 

By lads of the Myrtle and Steel. 

Then hey for the Myrtle and Steel, 

Then ho for the Myrtle and Steel, 
Let every true blade that e 'er loved a fair maid 

Fill a round to the Myrtle and Steel. 

* In Pascagoula Bay strange music is heard when certain 
winds prevail. Naturalists attribute the phenomenon to 
the vibration of the ' horns' of catfish, which at such times 
congregate in large schools. 



SON(iS — ,M ISCELLANEOUS. 



23 



MY BIRCHEN DARK. 
My birchen hark, my birclicn bark ! 

When Fortune first 0100*6 bom a rover, 
He Bliaped it for his own trim ark 

To float Care's deluge gaily over. 
Then have the boasting pioneer 

To hew his skitF from yonder pine, 
And, dearest, with young Love to steer, 

I! nunc a passenger in mine: 
In swan-like grace thy form resembling — 
With joj beneath thy sweet limbs trembling — 
For lightsome heart, oh, such a boat 
On summer wave did never float! 

Think'st thou, my love, that painted barge, 

With gaudy pennant Haunting o'er her, 
Could kiss, like her, the flowery marge, 

Nor break the foam-hills form'd before her? 
Look, sweet, the very lotus-cup, 

Trembling as if with bliss o'crbriinm'd, 
Seem'd now almost to buoy her up 

As o'er the heart-shaped leaves we skimm'd— 
Those floating hearts, beside their flowers, 
Half bear the boat and both of ours ! 
For lightsome heart, oh, such a boat 
On summer wave did never float ! 



LE FAINEANT. 

"Now arouse thee, Sir Knight, from thine indolent 

case, 
Fling boldly thy banner abroad in the breeze, 
Strike home for thy lady — strive hard for the prize, 
And thy guerdon shall beam from her love-lighted 

eyes !" 

" I shrink not the trial," that bluff knight replied — 
" But I battle — not / — for an unwilling bride ; 
Where the boldest may venture to do and to dare, 
My pennon shall flutter — my bugle peal there ! 

" I quail not at aught in the struggle of life, 
I 'in not all unproved even now in the strife, 
But the wreath that I win, all unaided — alone, 
Round a faltering brow it shall never be thrown !" 

" Now fie on thy manhood, to deem it a sin 
That she lovcth the glory thy falchion might win, 
Let them doubt of thy prowess and fortune no more ; 
Up ! Sir Knight, for thy lady — and do thy devoir!" 

" She hath shrunk from my side, she hath fail'd in 

her trust, 
Not relied on my blade, but remember 'd its rust; 
It shall brighten once more in the field of its fame, 
But it is not for her I would now win a name." 

The knight rode away, and the lady she sigh'd, 
When he featly as ever his steed would bestride, 
While the mould from the banner he shook to the 

wind 
Seem'd to fall on the breast he left aching behind. 



But the rust on his glaive and the rust in his heart 
Had corroded too long and too deep to depart, 
And the brand only brightcn'd in honor once more, 
\N hen the heart ceased to beat on the fray-trampled 
shore. 

THE BROOK AND THE PINE. 

Tell Die, fair Brook, that long hast sung, 

To yonder Pine hast sung so sweetly — 
Arc its wild arms more near thee flung, 

When night their motion veils completely? 
Or, for the morn's caressing rays 

Still eager, will it toss its boughs, — 
Like hearts that only beat for praise, 

All heedless of affection's vows ? 

I never pause — the Brook replied — 

To know how near it bends above me, 
I cannot help, whate'er betide, 

To sing for one I fain would love me ; 
My song flows on, and still must flow, 

My chosen Pine with truth to bless, 
Though rippling pebbles sometimes show 

The brook athirst with tenderness : 

Nay more — when thus, while troublous, oft 

My wavelets flash some ray redeeming, 
I think but of the Pine aloft, 

Which first will proudly hail its beaming ! 
And, wasted thus, a joy it is 

To know ray Pine, — refrcsh'd and bright, 
While I distill'd each dewy kiss — 

Is worthy of all glorious light ! 



" L' AMOUR SANS AILES." 

Young Love, when tender mood beset him, 

One morn to Libia's casement flew, 
Who raised it just so far to let him 

Blow half his fragrant kisses through. 

Love brought no perch on which to rest, 

And Lilla had not one to give him, 
And now the thought her soul distress'd 

What should she do ? — where should she leave 
him ? 

Love maddens to be thus half caught, 

His struggle Lilla's pain increases ; 
"He'll fly — he'll fly away (she thought), 

Or beat himself and wings to pieces." 

" His wings ! why them I do not want — 
The restless things make all this pother : 

Love tries to fly, but finds he can't, 
And nestles near her like a brother. 

Plumeless, we call him Friendship now ; 

Love smiles at acting such a part — 
But what cares he for lover's vow 

While thus perdu near Lilla 's heart ? 



24 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



THE YACHTER. 

My bark is my courser so gallant and brave ; 
Like a steed of the prairie she bounds o'er the 

wave, 
And the breast of the billow as onward I roam, 
Swelling proudly to meet her is fleck'd by her foam. 

Like the winds which her canvass exultingly fill, 
I float as I list, and I rove as I will ; 
The breeze cannot baffle, for with it I veer, 
Or in the wind's eye like the petrel I steer. 

O'er the pages of story the student may pore, 
The trumpet the soldier may charm to the war, 
In the forest the hunter his heaven may see, 
But the bounding blue water and shallop for me. 

With no haven before me — beneath me my home — 
All heaven around me wherever I roam, 
I am free — I am free as the shrill piping gale, 
That whistles its music as onward I sail. 



NO MORE— NO MORE. 

No more — no more of song to-night ; 

Oh, let no more thy music flow ! 
Those notes that once could wake delight, 
Come o'er me like a spirit-blight, 
A breathing of the faded past, 
Whose freshest hopes to earth were cast 

Long, long ago. 

A livelier strain? nay, play instead, 

That movement wild and low, 
That chanting for the early dead 
Which best beseems spring blossoms fled, 
A requiem for each tender ray 
That from life's morning stole away 
Long, long ago. 



ANACREONTIC. 

Blame not the Bowl— the fruitful Bowl ! 

Whence wit, and mirth, and music spring, 
And amber drops elysian roll. 

To bathe young Love's delighted wing. 
What like the grape Osiris gave 

Makes rigid, age so lithe of limb ? 
Illumines memory's tearful wave, 

And teaches drowning hope to swim ? 
Did Ocean from his radiant arms 

To earth another Venus give, 
He ne'er could match the mellow charms 

That in the breathing beaker live. 

Like burning thoughts which lovers hoard 
In characters that mock the sight, 

Till some kind liquid, o'er them pour'd, 
Brings all their hidden warmth to light— 



Are feelings bright, which, in the cup 
Though graven deep, appear but dim, 

Till fill'd with glowing Bacchus up, 

t They sparkle on the foaming brim. 

Each drop upon the first you pour 

Brings some new tender thought to life, 

And as you fill it more and more, 
The last with fervid soul is rife. 

The island fount, that kept of old 

Its fabled path beneath the sea, 
And fresh, as first from earth it roll'd, 

From earth again rose joyously ; 
Bore not beneath the bitter brine, 

Each flower upon its limpid tide, 
More faithfully than in bright wine, 

Our hearts will toward each other glide. 
Then drain the cup, and let thy soul 

Learn, as the draught delicious flies, 
Like pearls in the Egyptian's bowl, 

Truth beaming at the bottom lies. 



THE LOVE TEST. 

I thought she was wayward — inconstant in part, 
But thought not the weakness e'er reach'd to her 

heart ; 
'T was a lightness of mood which but tempted a 

lover 
The more the true way to that heart to discover. 

What changeful seem'd there, was the play of the 

wave 
Which veileth the depth of the firm ocean cave ; 
I cared not how fitful that .light wave might flow, 
I would dive for the pearl of affection below. 

I won it, methought ! and now welcome the strife, 
The burthen, the toil, the worst struggles of life ; 
Come trouble — come sorrow — come pain and de- 
spair, 
We divide ills, that each for the other would bear ! 

I believed — I could swear there was that in her 

breast, 
That soul of wild feeling, which needs but the test, 
To leap like a falchion — bright, glowing, and true, 
To the hand which its worth and its temper best 

knew. 

And what was the struggle which tested love's 

power ? 
What fortune, so soon, could bring trial's dark hour ? 
Did some shadow of evil first make her heart quail ? 
Or the worst prove at once that her truth could 

ne'er fail ? 
I painted it sternly, the lot she might share ! 
I took from Love's wing all the gloss it may bear ; 
I told her how often his comrade is Care ! 
I appeal'd to her heart — and her heart it was — 

where ? 



SONGS — MISCELLANEOUS. 



25 



SONG OF THE DROWNED. 


THE SLEIGH BELLS. 


Down, far down, in the waters deep, 


Merrily, merrily sound the bells 


Where the booming surges above us sweep, 


As o'er the ground wc roll, 


Our revels from night till mom we keep: 


And the snow-drill breaks in silvery flakes 


And though with us the cap foes round 


Before our cariole. 


Upon every shore where the blue waves sound, 


When wrapp'd in buffalos soft and warm, 


Yrt here, as it passes from lip to lip, 


With mantle and tippet dight, 


Alone is found true fellowship; 


Wc cheerily cleave the fleecy storm, 


For "lily the Head, where'er they range, 


Or skim in the cold moonlight. 


'Tie the Dead alone who never change. 


Merrily, merrily ! Merrily, merrily ! 


What boots your pledges, yc sons of Earth ; 


Merrily sound the bells. 


Or to whom yc drink in your hours of mirth, 


Merrily, merrily sound the bells 


When gather'd around your festal hearth? 


Upon the wind without, 


Yc fill to love ! and the toast yc give 


When the wine is mull'd and the waffle cull'd, 


Will hardly the fumes of your wine outlive ! 


And the song is pass'd about. 


To friendship till! and its tale is told, 


While rosy lips and dimpled cheeks 


Almost ere the pledge on your lip grows cold ! 


The welcome joke inspire, 


For only the Dead, where'er they range, 


And mirth in many a bright eye speaks 


'Tie the Dead alone who never change. 


Around the hickory fire, 


Then come, when the ' bolt of death is hurl'd,' 


Merrily, merrily ! Merrily, merrily ! 


Come down to us from that bleak, bleak world, 


Merrily sound the bells. 


Where the wings of Sorrow arc never furled : 





Come, and we'll drink to the shades of the past; 


BOAT SONG. 


To the hopes that mock'd in life to the last ; 


To the lips and eyes we once did adore, 


We court no gale with wooing sail, 


And the loves that in death can delude no more ! 


We fear no squall a-brewing ; 


For the Dead, the Dead, wherever they range, 


Seas smooth or rough, skies fair or bluff, 


'Tis only the dead who never change. 


Alike our course pursuing. 




For what to us are winds, when thus 





Our merry boat is flying, 




While, bold and free, with jocund glee, 


MORNING HYMN. 


Stout hearts her oars are plying ! 


" Let there be light !" The Eternal spoke, 


At twilight dun, when red the sun 


And from the abyss where darkness rode 


Far o'er the water flashes, 


The earliest dawn of nature broke, 


With buoyant song, our bark along 


And light around creation flow'd. 


His crimson pathway dashes. 


The glad earth smiled to see the day, 


And when the night devours the light, , 


The first-born day come blushing in ; 


And shadows thicken o'er us, 


The young day smiled to shed its ray 


The stars steal out, the skies about, 


Upon a world untouch'd by sin. 


To dance to our bold chorus. 


" Let there be light 1" O'er heaven and earth, 


Sometimes, near shore, we ease our oar, 


The God who first the day-beam pour'd, 


While beauty's sleep invading, 


Uttcr'd again his fiat forth, 


To watch the beam through her casement gleam, 


And shed the Gospel's light abroad. 


As she wakes to our serenading ; 


And, like the dawn, its cheering rays 


Then, with the tide, we floating glide 


On rich and poor were meant to fall, 


To music soft, receding, 


Inspiring their Redeemer's praise 


Or drain one cup, to her fill'd up, 


In lowly cot and lordly hall. 


For whom these notes are pleading. 


Then come, when in the orient first 


Thus, on and on, till the night is gone, 


Flushes the signal light for prayer ; 


' And the garish dawn is breaking ; 


Come with the earliest beams that burst 


While landsmen sleep, we boatmen keep 


From God's bright throne of glory there. 


The soul of frolic waking. 


Come kneel to Him who through the night 


And though cheerless then our craft look, when 


Hath watch'd above thy sleeping soul, 


To her moorings day hath brought her, 


To Him, whose mercies, like his light, 


By the moon amain she is launch'd again, 


Are shed abroad from pole to pole. 


To dance o'er the 'merry water. 



26 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



ROOM, BOYS, ROOM. 

There was an old hunter 

Camp'd down by the rill, 
Who fish'd in this water, 

And shot on that hill. 
The forest for him had 

No danger, nor gloom, 
For all that he wanted 

Was plenty of room ! 
Says he, " The world 's wide, 

There is room for us all ; 
Room enough in the green-wood, 

If not in the hall. 
Room, boys,, room, by the light of the moon, 
For why should n't every man enjoy his own room ?" 

He wove his own nets, 

And his shanty was spread 
With the skins he had dress'd 

And stretch'd out overhead ; 
Fresh branches of hemlock 

Made fragrant the floor, 
For his bed, as he sung 

When the daylight was o'er, 
" The world's wide enough, 

There is room for us all ; 
Room enough in the green-wood, 

If not in the hall. 
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, 
For why should n't every man enjoy his own room ?" 

That spring now half choked 

By the dust of the road, 
Under boughs of old maples 

Once limpidly flow'd ; 
By the rock whence it bubbles 

His kettle was hung, 
Which their sap often fill'd, 

While the hunter he sung, 
" The world 's wide enough, 

There is room for us all ; 
Room enough in the green-wood, 

If not in the hall. 
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, 
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room ?" 

And still sung the hunter — 

When one gloomy day, 
He saw in the forest 

What sadden'd his lay, — 
A heavy wheel 'd wagon 

Its black rut had made, 
Where fair grew the greensward 

In broad forest glade — 
"The world's wide enough, 

There is room for us all ; 
Room enough in the green-wood, 

If not in the hall. 
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, 
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room?" 



He whistled to his dog, 

And says he, " We can't stay ; 
I must shoulder my rifle, 

Up traps, and away." 
Next day, mid those maples, 

The settler's axe rung, 
While slowly the hunter 

Trudged off as he sung, 
"The world's wide enough, 

There is room for us all ; 
Room enough in the green-wood, 

If not in the hall. 
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, 
For why should n't every man enjoy his own room?" 



LOVE AND FAITH. 

'T was on one morn in springtime weather, 

A rosy, warm, inviting hour, 
That Love and Faith went out together, 

And took the path to Beauty's bower. 
Love laugh'd and frolick'd all the way, 

While sober Faith, as on they rambled, 
Allow'd the thoughtless boy to play, 

But watch'd him, wheresoe'er he gamboll'd.. 

So warm a welcome, Beauty smiled 

Upon the guests whom chance had sent her, 
That Love and Faith were both beguiled 

The grotto of the nymph to enter ; 
And when the curtains of the skies 

The drowsy hand of Night was closing, 
Love nestled him in Beauty's eyes, 

While Faith was on her heart reposing. 

Love thought he never saw a pair 

So softly radiant in their beaming ; 
Faith deem'd that he could meet no where 

So sweet and safe a place to dream in ; 
And there, for life in bright content, 

Enchain'd, they must have still been lying, 
For Love his wings to Faith had lent, 

And Faith he never dream'd of flying. 

But Beauty, though she liked the child, 

With all his winning ways about him, 
Upon his Mentor never smiled, 

And thought that Love might do without him ; 
Poor Faith abused, soon sighing fled, 

And now one knows not where to find him ; 
While mourning Love quick followed 

Upon the wings he left behind him. 

'T is said, that in his wandering 

Love still around that spot will hover, 
Like bird that on bewilder'd wing 

Her parted mate pines to discover ; 
And true it is that Beauty's door 

Is often by the idler haunted ; 
But, since Faith fled, Love owns no more 

The spell that held his wings enchante'd. 



SONGS— MISCELLANEOUS. 



27 



THE REMONSTRANCE. 

You give up the world ! why, us well might the 
sun, 
When tired of drinking the dew from the flowers, 
While his rays, like young hopes, stealing off one 
by one, 
Die away with the muezzin's last note from the 
towers, 
Declare that he never would gladden again, 

With one rosy smile, the young morn in its birth ; 
But leave weeping Day, with her sorrowful train 
( >t" hours, to grope o'er a pall-eover'd earth. 

The light of that soul, once so brilliant and steady, 

So far can the incense of flattery smother, 
That, at thought of the world of hearts conquer'd 
already, 
Like Macedon's madman, you weep for another? 
O ! if sated with this, you would seek worlds un- 
tried, 
And fresh as was ours, when first we began it, 
Let me know but the sphere where you next will 
abide, 
And that instant, for one, I am off for that planet. 



BUFF AND BLUE . 

Oh bold and true, 

In buff and blue, 
Is the soldier-lad that will fight for you. 

In fort or field, 

Untaught to yield 
Though death may close his story — 

In charge or storm, 

'Tis woman's form 
That marshals him to glory. 

For bold and true, 

In buff and blue, 
Is the soldier-lad that will fight for you. 

In each fair fold 

His eyes behold 
When his country's flag waves o'er him- 

In each rosy stripe, 

Like her lip so ripe, 
His girl is still before him. 

For bold and true, 

In buff arid blue, 
Is the soldier-lad that will fight for you. 



MELODY. 

When the flowers of Friendship or Love have de- 

cay'd, 
In the heart that has trusted and once been be- 

tray'd, 
No sunshine of kindness their bloom can restore ; 
For the verdure of feeling will quicken no more ! 



Hope cheated too often when life's in its spring, 
From the bosom that nursed it for ever takes wing ! 
And Memory comes, as its promises fade, 
To brood o'er the havoc that Passion has made. 

As 'tis said that the swallow the tenement leaves 
Where ruin endangers her nest in the eaves, 
While the desolate owl takes her place on the wall, 
And builds in the mansion that nods to its fall. 



WE PARTED IN SADNESS. 

We parted in sadness, but spoke not of parting ; 

We talk'd not of hopes that we both must resign ; 
I saw not her eyes, and but one teardrop starting 

Fell down on her hand as it trembled in mine : 
Each felt that the past we could never recover, 

Each felt that the future no hope could restore, 
She shudder'd at wringing the heart of her lover, 

/ dared not to say I must meet her no more. 

Long years have gone by, and the springtime smiles 
ever 
As o'er our young loves it first smiled in their 
birth ; 
Long years have gone by, yet that parting, oh ! 
never 
Can it be forgotten by either on earth. 
The note of each wild bird that carols toward 
heaven 
Must tell her of swift-winged hopes that were 
mine, 
While the dew that steals over each blossom at even 
Tells me of the teardrop that wept their decline. 



TRUST NOT LOVE. 

Oh, trust not Love — the wayward boy, 
But haste, if you'd detain him, 

Ere time can beauty's bond destroy, 

Or other eyes and lips decoy, 
With Hymen to enchain him. 

The humming-bird the blossom leaves 

Whene'er its sweets are failing ; 
The silken web the spider weaves, 
Yields up the prey to which she cleaves 
When autumn winds are wailing. 

And Love, when beauty's bloom decays, 

Will spread his fickle pinion, 
And prove the web in which he plays, 
Too weak against the rude world's ways 
To hold the roving minion. 

Then trust not Love — the wayward boy, 
But haste, if you'd detain him, 

Ere time can beauty's bond destroy, 

Or other eyes and lips decoy, 
With Hymen to enchain him. 



28 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



AWAY TO THE FOREST. 

Away to the forest, away, love, away ! 

My foam-champing courser reproves thy delay, 

And the hrooks are all calling-, Aw ay, love, away ! 
Away to the forest, my own love, with me ! 
Away where through ch»cker'd glade sports the 
wind free, 

Where in the bosky dell 

Watching young leaflets swell, 

Spring on each floral bell 
Counteth for thee, 

Away to the forest, away ! 

Away to the forest, away, love, away ! 

Each breath of the morning reproves thy delay ; 

Each shadow retiring beckons away ! 
Hark ! how the blue-birds throat carolling o'er us 
Chimes with the thrush's note floating before us ! 

Away then, my gentle one, 

Thy voice is miss'd alone. 

Away — let love's whisper'd tone 
Swell the, bright chorus, 

Away to the forest, away ! 



A HUNTER'S MATIN. 

Up, comrades, up ! the morn 's awake 
Upon the mountain side, 

The curlew's wing hath swept the lake, 
And the deer has left the tangled brake, 
To drink from the limpid tide. 

Up, comrades, up ! the mead-lark's note 

And the plover's cry o'er the prairie float, 



The squirrel he springs from his covert now 
To prank it away on the chestnut bough, 
Where the oriole's pendent nest high up, 

Is rock'd on the swaying trees, 
While the humbird sips from the harebell's cup, 

As it bends to the morning breeze. 
Up, comrades, up ! our shallops grate 

Upon the pebbly strand, 
And our stalwart hounds impatient wait 

To spring from the huntsman's hand. 



THE LOVER'S STAR. 

DANISH AIR. 

Oh, when, mid thy wild fancy's dreaming 
Life's meteors around thee are streaming, 
Thy tears still belie the false beaming 

That fain would thy spirit control — 
Look, look to that lone light above thee, 
The star that seems set there to love thee, 

Look there, and I 'm with thee in soul ! 
Look, look, &c. 

And, if when thus wilder'd, thou turnest, 
To lean on the true and the earnest — 
The friend for whom vainly thou yearnest 

Has pass'd like a mist from life's strand,- 
Oh, come, come again to me, dearest ! 
Thou still to my soul shalt be nearest, 

All mine in that bright spirit land ! 
Oh ! come, come again, &,c. 



OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



MOONLIGHT ON THE HUDSON. 

WRITTEN AT WEST TOINT. 

I 'si not romantic, but, upon my word, 

There are some moments when one can't help 
feeling 
As if his heart's chords were so strongly stirr'd 

By things around him, that 'tis vain concealing 
A little music in his soul still lingers 
Whene'er its keys are touch'd by Nature's fingers : 

And even here, upon tliis settee lying, 

With many a sleepy traveller near me snoozing, 
Thoughts warm and wild are through my bosom 
flying, 

Like founts when first into the sunshine oozing : 
For who can look on mountain, sky and river, 
Like these, and then be calm and cold as ever ! 

Bright Dian, who, Camilla-like, dost skim yon 
Azure fields — Thou who, once earthward bend- 
ing, 

Didst loose thy virgin zone to young Endymion, 
On dewy Latinos to his arms descending — 

Thou whom the world of old on every shore, 

Type of thy sex, Triformis, did adore : 

Tell me — where'er thy silver bark be steering, 
By bright Italian or soft Persian lands, 

Or o'er those island-studded seas careering, 
Whose pearl-charged waves dissolve on coral 
strands ; 

Tell if thou visitest, thou heavenly rover, 

A lovelier stream than this the wide world over? 

Doth Acheldus or Araxes flowing 
Twin-born from Pindus, but ne'er meeting bro- 
thers — 
Doth Tagus o'er his golden pavement glowing, 
Or cradle-freighted Ganges, the reproach of mo- 
thers, 
The storied Rhine, or far-famed Guadalquiver, 
Match they in beauty my own glorious river ? 

What though no cloister gray nor ivied column 
Along these cliff's their sombre ruins rear ? 



C2 



What though no frowning tower nor temple so- 
lemn 
Of tyrants tell and superstition here — 
What though that mouldering fort's fast crum- 

bling walls 
Did ne'er enclose a baron's banner'd halls- 
Its sinking arches once gave back as proud 
An echo to the war-blown clarion's peal, 
As gallant hearts its battlements did crowd 

As. ever beat beneath a vest of steel, 
When herald's trump on knighthood's haughtiest 

day 
Call'd forth chivalric host to battle fray : 

For here amid these woods He once kept court 
Before whose mighty soul the common crowd 

Of heroes, who alone for fame have fought, 

Are like the patriarch's sheaves to heaven's cho- 
sen bow'd — 

He who his country's eagle taught to soar, 

And fired those stars which shine o'er every shore. 

And sights and sounds at which the world have 
wonder'd 
Within these wild ravines have had their birth ; 
Young Freedom's cannon from these glens have 
thunder'd, 
And sent their startling voices o'er the earth ; 
And not a verdant glade nor mountain hoary 
But treasures up within the glorious story. 

And yet not rich in high-soul'd memories only, 
Is every moon-kiss'd headland round me gleam- 
ing, 
Each cavern'd glen and leafy valley lonely, 
And silver torrent o'er the bald rock stream- 
ing: 
But such soft fancies here may breathe around, 
As make Vaucluse and Clarens hallow'd ground. 

Where, tell me where, pale watcher of the night — 
Thou that to love so oft hast lent its soul, 

Since the lorn Lesbian languish'd 'neath thy light, 
Or fated Romeo to his Juliet stole — 

Where dost thou find a fitter place on earth 

To nurse young love in hearts like theirs to birth? 

29 



30 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



Oh, loiter not upon ihax fairy shore 

To watch the lazy barks indistance glide, 

When sunset brightens on their sails no more, 
And stern-lights twinkle in the dusky tide ; 

Loiter not there, young heart, at that soft hour, 

What time the Queen of night proclaims love's 
power. 

Even as I gaze, upon my memory's track 
Bright as yon coil of light along the deep, 

A scene of early youth comes dream-like back, 
Where two stand gazing from the tide-wash'd 
steep, 

A sanguine stripling, just toward manhood flushing, 

A girl, scarce yet in ripen'd beauty blushing. 

The hour is his ! and while his hopes are soaring 
Doubts he that maiden will become his bride ? 

Can she resist that gush of wild adoring 

Fresh from a heart full-volumed as the tide ? 

Tremulous, but radiant, is that peerless daughter 

Of loveliness, as is the star-strewn water ! 

The moist leaves glimmer as they glimmer'd then, 
Alas ! how oft have they been since renew'd, 

How oft the whippoorwill, from yonder glen, 
Each year has whistled to her callow brood, 

How oft have lovers by yon star's same gleam, 

Dream'd here of bliss — and waken'd from their 
dream ! 

But now, bright Peri of the skies, descending 
Thy pearly car hangs o'er yon mountain's crest, 

And Night, more nearly now each step attending, 
As if to hide thy envied place of rest, 

Closes at last thy very couch beside, 

A matron curtaining a virgin bride. 

Farewell ! Though tears on every leaf are starting, 
While through the shadowy boughs thy glances 
quiver, 

As of the good, when Heavenward hence departing, 
Shines thy last smile upon the placid river. 

So — could I fling o'er glory's tide one ray — 

Would I too steal from this dark world away. 

WRITTEN IN SPRINGTIME. 
Thou wak'st again, oh Earth ! 

From winter's sleep ! — 
Bursting with voice of mirth 

From icy keep ; 
And laughing at the Sun, 
Who hath their freedom won, 

Thy waters leap ! 

Thou wak'st again, oh Earth ! 

Freshly again, 
And who by fireside hearth 

Will now remain ? 
Come on the rosy hours — 
Come on thy buds and flowers 
As when in Eden's bowers 



Spring first did reign. 
Birds on thy breezes chime 
Blithe as in that matin time, 

Their choiring begun : 
Earth, thou hast many a prime — 

Man hath but one ! 

Thou wak'st anew, oh Earth — 

Freshly anew ! 
As when at Spring's first birth 

First flow'rets grew. 
Heart ! that to Earth doth cling, 
While boughs are blossoming, 

Why wake not too ? 

Long thou in sloth hast lain, 
Listing to Love's soft strain — 

Wilt thou sleep on ? 
Playing, thou sluggard heart, 
In life no manly part, 

Though youth be gone. 
Wake ! 'tis Spring's quickening breath 

Now o'er thee blown ; 
Awake thee ! and ere in death 
Pulseless thou slumbereth, 
Pluck but from Glory's wreath 

One leaf alone ! 



TOWN REPININGS. 

River, oh river, thou rovest free 

From the mountain height to the fresh blue sea, 

Free thyself, while in silver chain 

Linking each charm, of land and main. 

Calling at first thy banded waves 

From hill-side thickets and fern-hid caves, 

From the splinter'd crag thou leap'st below, ' 

Through leafy glades at will to flow: — 

Idling now mid the dallying sedge, 

Slumbering now by the steep's moss'd edge, 

With statelier march once more to break 

From wooded valley to breezy lake ; 

Yet all of these scenes, though fair they be, 

River, oh river, are bann'd to me ! 

River, oh river ! upon thy tide 
Gaily the freighted vessels glide, 
Would that thou thus couldst bear away 
The thoughts that burthen my weary day, 
Or that I, from all, save them, set free, 
Though laden still, might rove with thee. 
True that thy waves brief lifetime find, 
And live at the will of the wanton wind — 
True that thou seekest the ocean's flow 
To be lost therein for evermoe ! 
Yet the slave who worships at Glory's shrine, 
But toils for a bubble as frail as thine, 
But loses his freedom here, to be 
Forgotten as soon as in death set free. 



OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



31 



A PORTS UT. 
SraTfc— My features ne'er shall try the limner'a art! 

GrjY.— Will thoil nut have thy picture taken, lad] ? 

01 believe me, already, it in one fond heart 

Is laid in colours which can never fade. Ptbe Artist, 

Not hers the charms which Laura's lover drew, 
Or Titian's pencil on the canvass threw ; 
No sou] enkindled beneath southern skies 
(Jlow'd mi her cheek and sparkled in her eyes; 
No prurient charms set off her slender form 
With swell Voluptuous and with contour warm; 
"While eaeh proportion was by Nature told 
tn maiden beauty's most bewitching mould. 

on her peerless brow — a radiant throne 
Unmix'd with auglit of earth — pule genius sat 

alone. 
And yet, at. times, within her eye there dwelt 
Soilness that would the sternest bosom melt, 
\ depth of tenderness which show'd, when woke, 
That woman there as well as angel spoke. 
Yet well that eye could flash resentment's r;;ys, 
Or, proudly scornful, check the boldest gaze; 
Chill burning passion with a calm disdain, 
Or with one glance rekindle it again. 
Her mouth — ! never fascination met 
Near woman's lips half so alluring yet : 
For round her mouth there play'd, at times, a smile, 
Such as did man from Paradise beguile ; 
Such, could it light him through this world of pain, 
As he'd not barter Eden to regain. 
Whafo though that smile might beam alike on 

all; 
What though that glance on each as kindly fall ; 
What though you knew, while worshipping their 

power, 
Your homage hut the pastime of the hour, 
Still they, however guarded were the heart, 
Could every feeling from its fastness start — 
Deceive one still, howe'er deceived before, 
And make him wish thus to be cheated more, 
Till, grown at last in such illusions gray, 
Faith follow'd Hope and stole with Love away. 
Such was Alinda ; such in her combined 
Those charms which round our very nature wind; 
Which, when together they in one conspire, 
He who admires must love — who sees, admire. 
Variably perilous ; upon the sight 
Now bcam'd her beauty in resistless light, 
And subtly now into the heart it stole, - 
And, ere it startled, occupied the whole. 
'Twas well for-hcr, that lovely mischief, well 
That she could not the pangs it waken'd tell ; . 
That, like the princess in the fairy tale, 
No soft emotions could her soul assail ; 
For Nature, — that Alinda should not feek 
For wounds her eyes might make, but never heal,-— 
In mercy, while she. did each gift impart 
Of rarest excellence, withheld a heart ! 



A FRONTIER INCIDENT. 

The Indian whoop is heard without, 

Within the Indian arrow lies; 
There's horror in that fiendish shout, 

There s death where'er that arrow flics. 

Two trembling women there alone, 

Alone to guard a feeble child ; 
What shield, oh Cod ! is round them thrown 

Amid that scene of peril wild ? 

Thy Book upon the table there, 

Reveals at once from whence could flow 
The strength to dash aside despair, 

The meekness to abide the blow. 
Already, half rcsign'd, she kneels, 

And half imploring, kneels the mother, 
Awdiilc angelic courage steels 

The gentle nature of the other. 
They thunder on the oaken door, 

They pierce the air with furious yell, 
And soon that plume upon the floor 

May grace some painted warrior well. 

Oh, why cannot one stalwart arm 

But wield the brand that hangeth by ? 

And snatch the noble girl from harm, 
Who hecdeth not the hellish cry / 

A shot ! the savage leader falls — 

The maiden's eye, which aim'd the gun — 

That eye, whose deadly aim appals, 
Is tearful when its task is done. 

He falls — and straight with baffled cries, 

His tribesmen fly in wild dismay ; 
And now, beneath the evening skies, 

That Household may in safety pray. 

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 

Teach thee their language ! sweet, I know no 
tongue, 

No mystic art those gentle things declare, 
I ne'er could trace the schoolman's trick among 

Created things, so delicate and rare : 
Their language? Prytheel why they are themselves 

But bright thoughts syllabled to shape and hue, 
The tongue that erst was spoken by the elves, 

When tenderness as yet within the world was new. 

And oh, do not their soft and starry eyes — 

Now bent to earth, to heaven now meekly plead- 
ing— 
Their incense fainting as it seeks the skies, 

Yet still from earth with freshening hope re- 
ceding — 
Say, do not these to every heart declare, 

With all the silent eloquence of truth, 
The language that they speak is Nature's prayer, 

To give her back those spotless days of youth ? 



J 



32 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



INDIAN SUMMER, 1828. 

Light as love's smile the silvery mist at morn 
Floats in loose flakes along the limpid river ; 
The blue-bird's notes upon the soft breeze borne, 

As high in air he carols, faintly quiver ; 
The weeping birch, like banners idly waving, 
Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving ; 

Beaded with dew the witch-elm's tassels shiver ; 
The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping, 
And from the springy spray the squirrel gaily leap- 
ing. 

I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery, ere 

The blasts of winter chase the varied dyes 
That richly deck the slow-declining year ; 
I love the splendor of thy sunset skies, 
The gorgeous hues that tinge each failing leaf 
Lovely as beauty's cheek, as woman's love too, brief; 

I love the note of each wild bird that flies, 
As on the wind he pours his parting lay, 
And wings his loitering flight to summer climes 
away. 

Oh Nature ! fondly I still turn to thee 

With feelings fresh as e'er my childhood's were ; 
Though wild and passion-tost my youth may be, 

Toward thee I still the same devotion bear ; 
To thee — to thee — though health and hope no more 
Life's wasted verdure may to me restore — 

Still — still, childlike I come, as when in prayer 
I bow'd my head upon a mother's knee, 
And deem'd the world like her, all truth and purity. 



EPITAPH UPON A DOG. 

An ear that caught my slightest tone, 

In kindness or in anger spoken ; 
An eye that ever watch'd my own, 

In vigils death alone has broken ; 
Its changeless, ceaseless, and unbought 

Affection to the last revealing ; 
Beaming almost with human thought, 

And more — for more than human feeling I 
Can such in endless sleep be chill'd, 

And mortal pride disdain to sorrow, 
Because the pulse that here was still'd 

May wake to no immortal morrow ? 
Can faith, devotedness, and love, 

That seem to humbler creatures given 
To tell us what we owe above, — 

The types of what is due to Heaven. — 

Can these be with the things that were, 

Things cherish'd — but no'more returning, 
And leave behind no trace of care, 

No shade that speaks a moment's mourning ? 
Alas ! my friend, of all of worth 

That years have stolen or years yet leave me, 
I 've never known so much on earth, 

But that the loss of thine mast grieve ine. 



ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. 

The snow yet in the hollow lies ; 

But, where by shelvy hill 't is seen, 
A thousand rills — its waste supplies-— 

Are trickling over beds of green. 
Down in the meadow glancing wings 

Flit in the sunshine round a tree, 
Where still a frosted apple clings, 

Regale for early Chickadee : 
And chesnut buds begin to swell, 

Where flying-squirrels peep to know 
If from the tree-top, yet, 'twere well 

To sail on leathery wing below — 
As gently shy and timorsome, 

Still holds she back who should be mine ; 
Come, Spring, to her coy bosom, come, 

And warm it toward her Valentine ! 

Come, Spring, and with the breeze that calls 

The wind-flower by the hill-side rill, 
The soft breeze that by orchard walls 

First dallies with 'the daffodil — 
Come lift the tresses from her cheek, 

And let me see the blush divine, 
That mantling there, those curls would seek 

To hide from her true Valentine. 

Come, Spring, and with the red-breast's note, 

That tells of bridal tenderness, 
Where on the breeze he'll warbling float 

Afar his nesting mate to bless — 
Come, whisper 'tis not alway Spring ! 

When birds may mate on every spray — 
That April boughs cease blossoming ! 

With love it is not always May ! 

Come, touch her heart with thy soft tale, 

Of tears within the floweret's cup, 
Of fairest things that soonest fail, 

Of hopes we vainly garner up — 
And while, that gentle heart to melt, 

Like mingled wreath, such tale you twine, 
Whisper what lasting bliss were felt 

In lot shared with her Valentine. 

TO AN AUTUMN ROSE. 
Tell her I love her — love her for those eyes 

Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth 
Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies, 

Reveal two heavens here to us on Earth — 
The one in which their soulful beauty lies, 

And that wherein such soulfulness has birth : 
Go to my lady ere the season flies, 

And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blast — 
Go ! and with all of eloquence thou hast, 

The burning story of my love discover, 

And if the theme should fail, alas ! to move her, 
Tell her when youth's gay budding-time is past, 

And summer's gaudy flowering is over, 
Like thee, my love will blossom to the last ! 






OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



33 



THY NAME. 
It comes to me when healths go round, 

And o'er the wine tlirir garlands wreathing 
The flowers of wit, with music wound, 

Arc freshly from the goblet breathing; 
From sparkling song and sally gay 
It comes to sti-;il my heart away, 
And till my soul, mid festal glee, 
With sad, sweet, silent thoughts of thee. 

It comes to me upon the mart, 

Where care in jostling crowds is rife; 
Where Avarice goads the sordid heart, 
Or cold Ambition prompts the strife; 
It comes to whisper if I'm there, 
'Tis but with lliee each prize to share, 
For Fame were not success to me, 
Nor riches wealth, unshared with thee. 

It comes to me when smiles are bright 
( >n gentle lips that murmur round me, 

And kindling glances flash delight 

In eyes whose spell might once have bound me. 

It comes — but comes to bring alone 

Remembrance of some look or tone, 

Dearer than aught I hear or see, 

Because 'twas worn or breathed by thee. 

It comes to me where cloister'd boughs 

Their shadows cast upon the sod ; 
Awhile in Nature's fane my vows 

Arc lifted from her shrine to God ; 
It comes to tell that all of worth 
I dream in heaven, or know on earth, 
However bright or dear it be, 
Is blended with my thought of thee. 



WHAT IS SOLITUDE? 

Not in the shadowy wood, 

Not in the crag-hung glen, 
Not where the echoes brood 

In caves untrod by men ; 
Not by the bleak seashore, 

Where barren surges break, 
Not on the mountain hoar, 

Not by the breezeless lake ; 
Not on the desert plain 

Where man hath never stood, 
Whether on isle or main — 

Not there is solitude ! 

Birds are in woodland bowers ; 

Voices in lonely dells ; 
Streams to the listening hours 

Talk in earth's secret cells ; 
Over the gray-ribb'd sand 

Breathe Ocean's frothy lips; 
Over the still lake's strand 

The wild flower toward it dips; 



Pluming the mountain's crest 

I lift losses in its pines ; 
Coursing the desert's breast 

Life in the steed's mane shines. 

Leave — if thou wouldst be lonely — 

Leave Nature for the crowd ; 
Seek there for one — one only 

With kindred mind endow'd ! 
There — as with Nature erst 

Closely thou wouldst commune — 
The deep soul-music nursed 

In either heart, attune ! 
Heart-wearied thou wilt own, 

Vainly that phantom woo'd, 
That thou at least hast known 

What is true Solitude ! 

BIRTH-DAY THOUGHTS. 

At twenty-five — at twenty-five, 

The heart should not be cold ; 
It still is young in deeds to strive, 

Though half life's tale is told ; 
And Fame should keep its youth alive, 

If Love would make it old. 

But mine is like that plant which grew 

And wither'd in a night, 
Which from the skies of midnight drew 

Its ripening and its blight — 
Matured in Heaven's tears of dew, 

And faded ere her light. 

Its hues in sorrow's darkness born, 

In tears were foster'd first; 
Its powers from passion's frenzy drawn, 

In passion's gloom were nurs'd — 
And perishing ere manhood's dawn, 

Did prematurely burst. 

Yet all I've learnt from hours rife 

With painful brooding here, 
Is, that amid this mortal strife, 

The lapse of every year 
But takes away a hope from life, 

And adds to death a fear. 

THE BLUSH. 

The lilies faintly to the roses yield, 

As on thy lovely cheek they struggling vie, 

(Who would not strive upon so sweet a field 
To win the mastery ?) 

And thoughts are in thy speaking eyes reveal'd, 

Pure as the fount the prophet's rod unseal'd. 

I could not wish that in thy bosom aught 

Should e'er one moment's transient pain awaken, 

Yet can't regret that thou — forgive the thought — 
As flowers when shaken 

Will yield their sweetest fragrance to the wind, 

Should, ruffled thus, betray thy heavenly mind. 



34 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



THE BOB-O-LINKUM. 

Thou vocal sprite — thou feather'd troubadour ! 

In pilgrim weeds through many a clime a ranger, 
Com'st thou to doff thy russet suit once more, 

And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger? 
Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and na- 
ture; 

But wise, as all of us, perforce, must think 'em, 
The school-boy best hath fixed thy nomenclature, 

And poets, too, must call thee Bob-O-Linkum. 

Say ! art thou, long mid forest glooms benighted, 

So glad to skim our laughing meadows over — 
With our gay orchards here so much delighted, 

It makes thee musical, thou airy rover ? 
Or are those buoyant notes the pilfer'd treasure 

Of fairy isles, which thou hast learn'd to ravish 
Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure, 

And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish ? 

They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks 

Wherever o'er the land thy pathway ranges ; 
And even in a brace of wandering weeks, 

They say, alike thy song and plumage changes ; 
Here both are gay ; and when the buds put forth, 

And leafy June is shading rock and river, 
Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the North, 

While through the balmy air thy clear notes 
quiver. 

Joyous, yet tender — was that gush of song 

Caught from the brooks, where mid its wild 
flowers smiling 
The silent prairie listens all day long, 

The only captive to such sweet beguiling ; 
Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls 
And column'd isles of western groves sympho- 
nious, 
Learn from the tuneful woods, rare madrigals, 
To make our flowering pastures here harmoni- 
ous? 
Caught'st thou thy carol from Ot'awa maid, 
Where, through the liquid fields of wild rice 
plashing, 
Brushing the ears from off the burden'd blade, 

Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing ? 
Or did the reeds of some savannah South, 

Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, 
To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth, 
The spice-fed winds had taught them in their 
wooing ? 

Unthrifty prodigal ! — is no thought of ill 

Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever ? 
Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still 

Throb on in music till at rest for ever ? 
Yet now in wilder'd maze of concord floating, 

'T would seem that glorious hymning to prolong, 
Old Time in hearing thee might fall a-doating, 

And pause to listen to thy rapturous song ! 



DISTRUST. 

My life's whole pilgrimage have I not told — 

Mapping my Past before those loving eyes, 
With such minuteness that they might behold 

Each hair-line of my soul, without disguise ? 
Was Truth not woven, every line acrost — 

An iron thread mid silver subtleties 
Of Fancy or of Feeling, howe'er gloss'd, 

Was Faith not there, at rein or helm the while, 
A guide, a check, for fancy's luring smile, 

A guide, a check, for feeling passion-toss'd ; 
Oh, how then, now can, thought of me so vile, 

Thought as of one to truth and faith, both lost, 
Ignobly come thy bosom to beguile, 

And kill affection with suspicion's frost I 

SYMPATHY. 

Well ! call it Friendship ! have I ask'd for more, 
Even in those moments, when I gave the most ? 
'Twas but for thee, I look'd so far before ! 
I saw our bark was hurrying blindly on, 
A guideless thing upon a dangerous coast — 
With thee — with thee, where would I not have gone ? 
But could I see thee drift upon the shore, 
Unknowing drift upon a shore, unknown ? 
Yes, call it Friendship, and let no revealing 
If love be there, e'er make love's wild name heard, 
It will not die, if it be worth concealing ! 
Call it then Friendship — but oh, let that word 
Speak but for me — for me, a deeper feeling 
Than ever yet a lover's bosom stirr'd ! 

THE WISH. 

Bright as the dew, on early buds that glistens, 
Sparkle each hope upon thy flower-strewn path ; 

Gay as a bird to its new mate that listens, 
Be to thy soul each winged joy it hath ; 

Thy lot still lead through ever-blooming bowers, 

And Time for ever talk to thee in flowers. 

Adored in youth, while yet the summer roses 
Of glowing girlhood bloom upon thy cheek, 

And, loved not less when fading, there reposes 
The lily, that of springtime past doth speak. 

Never from Life's garden to be rudely riven, 

But softly stolen away from Earth to Heaven. 

"OUR FRIENDSHIP." 

It will endure ! It hath the seal upon it 

That once alone in life is ever set ; 
It will endure ! we both by suffering won it ; 

It will endure — for neither can forget. 
It must endure ! for is not Truth immortal ? 

And those same tears which saw our hopes de- 
part, 
Brought her, the comforter, from Heaven's bright 
portal, 

In rainbow radiance spanning heart to heart ! 



OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



35 



" BRUNT THE FIGHT." 

[SUGGESTED I'.V AN EMBALMED INDIAN BEAD PRESENTED 
BY THE WRITER TO THE LYCEUM OF NATURAL 
HISTORY. NEW YORK.] 

" Tims iinniiv live heroic men, 

A coftsecrated baud ; 
Life is to thi'in a battle Beld, 

Their hearts a holy land."— TOCKERMAN. 

Not to the conflict, whore those death wounds came 
That still discolor thine undaunted brow, 

Not to the wildwood, whore thy soul of flame 
Found vent alone in deeds — all nameless now, 

Though startled fancy first by those is caught — 

Not, not to these dost thou enchain my thought ! 

The tuft of honor, streaming there unshorn, 
The separate gashes, every one in front, 

Prove knightly crest was ne'er more bravely borne 
By charging champion through the battle's brunt, 

While those old scars, from forays long since past, 

Bespeak the warrior's life from first to last. 

Bespeak the man who acted out the ichole — 
The whole of all he knew of high and true, 

All that was vision'd in his savage soul, 

All that his barbarous powers on earth could do, 

Bespeak the being perfect to the plan 

Of Nature when she moulded such a man. 

His simple law of duty and of right — 

Oneness of soul in action, thought and feeling, 

His mind, disturb'd by no conflicting light, 
His narrow faith, so clear in each revealing, 

His will untrammcll'd to act out the part 

So plainly graved on his untutor'd heart: 

Envy I these? Would I for these forego 
The broader scope of being that is mine ? 

His bond of sense with spirit once to know 
Would I the strife for truth and good resign ? 

How can I — when, according to my light, 

My law, like his, is still to brunt the fight ! 



WALLER TO SACHARISSA. 

[It is said they met at court after Waller was wedded to 
another, and that the lady coolly asked the poet to address a 
copy of verses to her : Johnson has commented upon the 
bitterness of his reply.] 

To-night! to-night! what memories to-night 

Came thronging o'er me as I stood near thee. 
Thy form of loveliness, thy brow of light, 

Thy voice's thrilling flow, 
All, all were there ; to me — to me as bright 
As when they claim'd my soul's idolatry 
Years, long years ago ! 

That gulf of years ! Oh, God ! hadst thou been 
mine, 
Would all that 's precious have been swallow'd 
there ? 



Youth's meteor hope, and manhood's high design, 

Lost, lost, for ever lost — 
Lost with the love that with them all would twine, 
The love that left no harvest but despair. 

Unwon at such a cost ! 

Was it ideal that wild, wild love I bore thee ? 

Or thou thyself — didst thou my soul enthral ? 
Such as thou art to-night did I adore thee ! 

Ay, idolize — in vain ! 
Such as thou art to-night — could time restore me 
That wealth of loving — shouldst thou have it all 
To waste perchance again ? 

No ! Thou didst break the coffers of my heart, 

And set so lightly by the hoard within, 
That / too lcarn'd at last the squanderer's art, — 

Went idly here and there, 
Filing my soul and lavishing a part 

On each, less cold than thou, who cared to win 
And seem'd to prize a share. 

No ! Thou didst wither up my flowering youth. 

If blameless, still the bearer of a blight ! 
The unconscious agent of the deadliest ruth 

That human heart hath riven ! 
Teaching me scorn of my own spirit's truth ! 
Holding — not me — but that fond worship light 
Which link'd my soul to Heaven ! 

No ! — No ! — For me the weakest heart before 

One so untoueh'd by tenderness as thine ! 
Angels have enter'd through the frail tent door 

That pass the palace now — 
And He who spake the words " Go sin no more," 
Mid human passions saw the spark divine, 
But not in such as thou ! 



PRIMEVAL WOODS. 

i. 

Yes ! even here, not less than in the crowd, 
Here, where yon vault in formal sweep seems piled 
Upon the pines, monotonously proud, 
Fit dome for fane, within whose hoary veil 
No ribald voice an echo hath defiled — 
W T here Silence seems articulate ; up-stealing 
Like a low anthem's heavenward wail : — 
Oppressive on my bosom weighs the feeling 
Of thoughts that language cannot shape aloud ; 
For song too solemn, and for prayer too wild, — 
Thoughts, which beneath no human power could 

quail, 
For lack of utterance, in abasement bow'd, — 
The cavern'd waves that struggle for revealing, 
Upon whose idle foam alone God's light hath smiled. 



Ere long thine every stream shall find a tongue, 
Land of the Many Waters ! But the sound 



36 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



Of human music, these wild hills among, 
Hath no one save the Indian mother flung 
Its spell of tenderness ? Oh, o'er this ground 
So redolent of Beauty, hath there play'd no breath 
Of human poesy — none beside the word 
Of Love, as, murmur'd these old boughs beneath, 
Some fierce and savage suitor it hath stirr'd 
To gentle issues — none but these been heard ? 
No mind, no soul here kindled but my own ? 
Doth not one hollow trunk about resound 
With the faint echoes of a song long flown, 
By shadows like itself now haply heard alone, 



And Ye, with all this primal growth must go ! 
And loiterers beneath some lowly spreading shade, 
Where pasture-kissing breezes shall, ere then, have 

play'd, 
A century hence, will doubt that there could grow 
From that meek land such Titans of the glade ! 
Yet wherefore primal ? when beneath my tread 
Are roots whose thrifty growth, perchance hath 

arm'd 
The Anak spearman when his trump alarm'd ! 
Roots that the Deluge wave hath plunged below ; 
Seeds that the Deluge wind hath scattered ; 
Berries that Eden's warblers may have fed ; 
Safe in the slime of earlier worlds embalm'd : 
Again to quicken, germinate and blow, 
Again to charm the land as erst the land they 

charm'd. 



THE FIRST AND LAST PARTING. 

We parted at the midnight hour, — 

We parted then as lovers part. 
The stars which pierced that trellis'd bower, 

They saw me press her to my heart ! 
I left her with no fear — no doubt ! 

I left with her my hopes — my all — 
I left her then !— O God ! — without 

A dream of what would soon befall. 

I went to toil — far from her sight, 

Far from her blessed voice away — 
But still she haunted me by night, 

Still murmur'd in my ears by day. 
The hours flew by in dreams of her, 

Those hours which claim'd far. other care, 
I wasted them — fond worshipper — 

In dreams, whose waking was despair ! 

A month — no, not a month, — by Heaven ! 

Had fled since she was pledged to me — 
Since / love's parting kiss had given 

To seal her vows of constancy ! 
The very moon was not yet old, 

Whose crescent beam our loves had lighted- 



Yet ere those few short weeks were told, 
She had forgot the faith she plighted ! 

I heard her lips that faith forswear — 

And, while those lips reveal'd the tale, 
My very soul it blush' d that e'er 

It could have loved a thing so frail ! 
Yet scorn — it was not scorn that stung — 

'T was pity — horror — grief, that moved me — 
I felt the wrong — the shameless wrong, 

But spared the heart that once had loved me ! 

Yes, faithless, false, as now I found it, 

That heart had beat against my own, 
And I — I could not bear to wound it, 

When all its shielding worth was flown. 
What though I could believe no more 

In such as her own lips reveal'd her ! 
Yet still when all Love's faith was o'er, 

Love's tenderness remain'd to shield her. 

And when the moment came to break 

The subtle chain around me cast, 
Like me she seem'd in soul to ache 

At riving of its links at last. 
Could they betray my mind once more, 

Those pleading looks ? yes ! even then, 
So sweet the guise of truth they wore, 

I wish'd to be deceived again. 

Ay ! strangely, as at first we met — 

There did, by Heaven ! around her hover 
Such light of warmth and truth, that yet 

I, at the last, was still her lover ! 
And when I saw her brow o'ercast — 

Saw tears from those soft eyelids melt, 
I reck'd not, cared not for the past, 

But there, adoring, could have knelt ! 

That moment to her lip and eye 

There came that calm and loveless air, 
Light Beauty, when her triumph's nigh, 

Will toward its easy victim wear.. 
No test — no time— no fate had wrought 

O'er soul like mine so strong a spell, 
As in that moment chill'd to nought 

Love that did seem unquenchable ! 

We parted — not as lovers part — 

No kind farewell — no fond regret 
Was utter'd then from either heart— 

We parted only to forget ! 
We parted, not as lovers part, 

As lovers we can meet no more. 
Let Time decide in either heart 

Which most such parting shall deplore. 

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S PRAYER BOOK. 

Thy thoughts are Heavenward ! and thy heart, they 
say, 
Which love, oh ! more than mortal, fail'd to move, 



OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



37 



Now in its precious casket melts away, 
And owns the impress of a Saviour's love! 

Many, in days gone by, full many a prayer, 

Pore, though niipassion'd, has been breathed for 

tlll'O 

B] one who once thy hallow'd name would dare 

Prefi r with bis to the Divinity ! 
Requite them now — not with an earthly love — 

Hut since with that his lot thou mayst not bless, 
Ask — what he dare not pray for from above — 

For him the mercy of Forgetfulncss. 

"WHERE WOULD I REST?" 
Under old boughs, where moist the livelong sum- 
mer 
The moss is green, and springy to your tread, 
When you, my friend, shall be an often comer 
To pierce the thicket, seeking for my bed : 

For thickets heavy all around should screen it 
From careless gazer that might wander near, 

Nor even to him who by some chance" had seen it, 
Would I have aught to catch his eye, appear : 



One lonely stem — a trunk those old boughs lifting, 
Should mark the spot; and, haply, new thrift 
owe 
To that which upward through its sap was drift- 
ing 
From what lay mouldering round its roots be- 
low. 

There my freed spirit with the dawn's first gleam- 
ing 
Would come to revel round the dancing spray : 
There would it linger with the day's last beam- 
ing. 
To watch thy footsteps thither track their way. 

The quivering leaf should whisper in that hour 
Things that for thee alone would have a sound, 

And parting boughs my spirit-glances shower 
In gleams of light upon the mossy ground. 

There, when long years and all thy journeyings 
over — 

Loosed from this world thyself to join the free, 
Thou too wouldst come to rest beside thy lover 

In that sweet cell beneath our Trysting-Tree. 



EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



THE AMBUSCADE.* 

The mountain-tops are bright above, 

The lake is bright beneath — 
And the mist is seen, the rocks between, 

In a silver shroud to wreathe. 
Merrily on the maple spray 
The redbreast trills his roundelay, 
And the oriole blithely flits among 
The boughs where her pendent nest is hung ; 
The squirrel his morning revel keeps 

In the chestnut's leafy screen, 
And the fawn from the thicket gayly leaps 

To gambol upon the green. 
Now on the broad lake's waters blue 
Dances many a light canoe ; 
And banded there, in wampum sheen, 
Many a crested chief is seen : 
Now as the foamy fringe they break, 
Which the waves, where they kiss the margin, 

make, 
The shallops shoot on the snowy strand, 
And the plumed warriors leap to land. 

They bear their pirogues of birchen bark 

Far in the shadowy forest glade, 
And plunge them deep in covert dark 

Of the closely woven hazel shade ; 
Then stealthily tread in each other's track, 
And with wary step come gliding back. 
And when the water again is won, 
Unlace the beaded mockason, 
And covering first with careful hand 
The footmarks dash'd in the yielding sand, , 
Round jutting point and dented bay 
Through the wave they take their winding way. 

Awhile their painted forms are seen 
Gleaming along the margin green, 
And then the sunny lake is left— 
Where issuing from a mountain cleft— 

* " There was one incident, particularly, reminding me so 
strongly of some passages in the Lady of the Lake, that I 
used to think with a kind of fevered impatience that the 
romantic pen of Scott should be for ever wanting to do it 
justice: and I ventured at last to attempt picturing it in 
an imitation of his glorious verse, which found its way 
into print many years since, nearly in the form in which it 
is here copied from the N. Y. American of June 1830." See 
Wild Scenes of the Forest and Prairie, Colyer's edition. 



Above whose bold impending height 
The dusky larch excludes the light, 
The current of a rivulet 
Conceals their wary footsteps yet. 

Scaling the rocks, where strong and deep 
Abrupt the waters foaming leap, 
Along the stream they bending creep, 
Where the hanging birch's tassels sweep, 
Thrid the witch-hazel and alder-maze, 
Where in broken rills the streamlet strays, 
And reach the spot where its oozy tide . 
Steals from the mountain's shaggy side. 

Now where wild vines their tendrils fling, 

From crag to crag their forms they swing, 

Some boldly find a footing where 

The mountain cat would hardly dare ; 

Others as lightly onward bound 

As the frolic chipmonk skips the ground, 

Till all the midway mountain gain 

And there once more collected meet, 
Where on the eagle's wild domain 

The morning sunbeams fiercely beat. 

There's a glen upon that mountain-side, 

A sunny dell expanding wide, 

Where the eye that looks through the green arcade 

Of cliffs in vines and shrubs array'd, 

Sees many a silver stream and lake 

Upon its raptured vision break ; 

That sunny dell has its opening bright 

Almost within an arrow's flight 

Of a fearful gorge, whose upper side 

Rank weeds and furze as closely hide, 

As if some woodland elf had plied 

His skill in weaving osiers green, 
And thus in thievish freak had tried 

Its gloomy mouth to screen. 

'Tis a chasm beneath the wooded steep, 

Where the brain will swim and the blood will creep 

When its dizzy edge is seen, 
And the Fiend will prompt the heart to leap 
When the eye would measure the yawning deep 

Of that hideous ravine ! 
Far down the gulf in distance dim 
The bat will oft at noontide skim, 
The rattlesnake like a shadow glides 
Through poisonous weeds in its shelvy sides, 

— 



EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



39 



While Bworming lizards loathsome crawl 
Where the green-damp stands on the slimy wall, 
And the venomous copper-snake's heard to hiss 
On the frightful edge of that black abyss. 

Here, in the feathery fern — between 
The tangled thicket's matted screen, 

Their weapons hid, save where a blade 
From straggling ray reflection made, 

The Adirondach warriors lay. 
The morning sees them gather there 
And crouch within their leafy lair — 

The scorching beams of noontide hour, 
If boughs should lift, would only play 
On bronzed and motionless array 

Within that silent bower : 
Still silent when the mantle gray 

Of sombre twilight slowly fell, 

O'er rocky height and wooded dell, 
Those men of bronze all silent they 
Still waited for their prey ! 

How slow the languid moments move, 

How long to him their lapse appears 
In whom remorse, or fear, or love, 

Concentres griefs untold by tears, 

The gathcr'd agony of years ! 
But o'er the Indian warrior's soul 
Uncounted and unheeded roll 

Long hours, like these in watching spent, 
The moments that he knows within, 

When on the glorious War-Path sent, 
Are calm as those which usher in 

The thunders of the firmament! 

The moose hath left the rushy brink 

Where he stole to the lake at eve to drink, 

And sought his lair in thicket dark, 

liit only by the fire-fly's spark. 

Now myriad stars arc twinkling through 

The vaulted heaven's veil of blue, 

And seem reflected in the wave 

With golden studs its bed to pave. 

Now as upon the western hills 

The moon her mystic circle fills, 

Against the sky each cliff is flung, 

As if at magic touch it sprung ; 

And as the wood her beam receives, 

The dewdrop in that virgin light 
Pendent from the quivering leaves, 

Sparkles upon the pall of night. 

Deep in the linden's foliage hid, 

Complains the peevish katydid, 

And the shrill screech-owl answers back 

From tulip-tree and tamarack. 

At times along the placid lake 

A solitary trout will break, 

And rippling eddies on the stream 

In trembling circles faintly gleam ; 



While near the sedgy shore is heard 

The plash of that ill-omen'd bird, 
Whose dismal note and boding cry 

Will oil the startled ear assail, 
When lowering clouds obscure the sky, 
And when the tempest gathers nigh 

Come quivering in the rising gale. 

Oh, why cannot that loon's wild shriek 
To them a feeble warning speak, 
Whose proudly waving banner now 
Comes floating round the mountain brow 
Whose gallant ranks in close array 
Now gleam along the moonlit way ; 
And now with many a bieak between, 
Are winding through the long ravine ? 

Oh, why cannot that loon's wild shriek 
To them a feeble warning speak, 
Who careless press a foeman's sod, 
As if in banquet-hall they trod ; 

Who rashly thus undaunted dare 
To chase in woods the forest child, 

To hunt the panther to his lair, 
The Indian in his native wild ? 

Unapprehensive thus, at night 

The wild doe looking from the brake, 
To where there gleams a fitful light 

Dotted upon the rippling lake, 
Sees not the silver spray-drop dripping 
From the lithe oar which, softly dipping, 

Impels the wily hunter's boat ; 
But on his ruddy torch's rays, 

As nearer, clearer now they float, 
The fated quarry stands to gaze, 

Arid dreaming not of cruel sport, 
Withdraws not thence her gentle eyes 

■ Until the rifle's sharp report 
The simple creature hears and dies. 

Buoyant with youth, as heedless they 

Pursue the death-besetted way, 

As cautionless each one proceeds, 

W x here his doom'd steps the pathway leads 

As if the peril of that hour 

But led those steps to beauty's bower. 

They come with stirring fife and drum, 

With flaunting plume and pennon come, 

To solitudes where never yet 

Hath gleam'd the glistening bayonet — 

Banner upon the breeze hath flown, 

Or bugle note before been blown. 

The cautious beaver starts with fear, 

That strange unwonted sound to hear ; 

But still her grave demeanor keeps, 

As from her hovel-door she peeps — 

Observing thence with curious eye 

The pageant as it passes by ; 

Pauses the wailing whippoorwill 

One moment, in her plaintive trill, 



40 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



As echoing on the mountain-side 
Their martial music wanders wide ; 
Then, as the last note dies away, 
Pursues once more her broken lay. 

At length they reach that fatal steep, 
Which, hanging o'er the chasm deep, 
With stunted copse and tangled heath, 
Conceals the gulf that yawns beneath. 
The watchful Indian, from his lair, 
One moment sees them falter there — 
One moment looks, with eagle eye, 
To mark their forms against the sky ; 
Then through the night air, wild and high, 
Peals the red warrior's battle-cry. 

From sassafras and sumach green, 
From shatter'd stump, and riven rock — 

From the dark hemlock boughs between, 
Is lanch'd the gleaming tomahawk. 

And savage eyes glare fiercely out 

From every bush and vine about ; 

And savage forms the branches throw 

In dusky masses on the foe. 

In vain their leaders strive to form 
Their ranks beneath that living storm ! 
As whoop on whoop discordant fell 

Loudly on their astounded ears, 
As if at once each fiendish yell 
Awoke, within that narrow dell, 

The echoes of a- thousand years ! 
No rallying cry, no hoarse command 
Can marshal that bewilder'd band ; 
Nor clarion-call to standard, more 
Those panic-stricken ranks restore ; 
Now strown like pines upon the path 
Where bursts the fierce tornado's wrath.- 

Yet some there are who undismay'd 

Seek sternly, back to back array'd, 

With eye and blade alert, in vain 

A moment's footing to maintain. 

Though gallant hearts direct the steel, 

And stalwart arms the buffets deal, 

What can a score of brands avail 

When each as many foes assail ? 

Like scud before the wintry blast, 

That through the sky comes sweeping fast, 

Like leaves upon the tempest whirl'd 

They toward the steep are struggling hurl'd. 

Valour in vain, in vain despair 
Nerves many a frantic, bosom there 
Furious with the unequal strife, 
To cling with desperate force to life. 
There, fighting still, with mad endeavor, 
As on the dizzy edge they hover, 
Their bugle breathes one rallying note, 
Pennon and plume one moment float ; 



Then, swept beyond the frightful brink 

Like mist, into the chasm sink ; 

Within whose bosom, as they fell, 

Arose as hideous, wild a yell 

As if the very earth were riven, 

And shrieks from hell were upward driven. 



LOVE'S VAGARIES, 
i. 

'T was wrongly done, to let her know the feeling . 

Which mask'd so long within my heart lay hid, 
Yet now I wonder at so well concealing 

My soul's full tenderness, as long I did; — 
'Twas wrongly done — and yet, howe'er it move 

Her fervid nature thus to love in vain, 
'T were better vainly even thus to love 

Than not to know she was beloved again ! 

Those hours of passion now for ever pass'd, 

Those wild endearments that we oft have known, 
Needed they not the veil around them cast 

That love, acknowledged love, at last hath 
thrown ? 
Long in remembrance as they now may live, 

However sad that living place may be, 
That love a hallow'd tenderness will give 

To things all bitter else in memory. 



In dreams — in dreams she answers to my yearning, 
And fondly lays her downy cheek to mine ; 

In dreams each night that faithful form returning 
Will on my breast with sweet content recline : 

Awhile my heart keeps time to her soft breathing, 

Heaving in motion to her bosom heaving. 

I wake — and oh, there is an inward sinking, 

A drear soul-faintness coming o'er me then, 
That through the livelong day but makes my 
thinking 
One fond, fond aching thus to dream again. — 
Soul — soul, where art thou through the day em- 

ploy'd, 
Only to fill at night my bosom's void ? 



What though I sigh to think that after all 
'Twas half some erring fancy of the mind, 

Half that illusion which they • love ' miscall 
Whose sense dreams not of sentiment refined : 

They to whom ne'er that gush of soul was given 

Which melts the heart to mould it but for Heaven — 

What though to think it was but this perchance 
Prompts the half-wistful — half-disdainful sigh ; 

Makes the fond tone — the tear — the tender glance 
Seem less than valueless in memory : 

Still would I rather my love ran to waste 

Than she I love « love's bitterness ' should taste. 



=!l 



EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



41 



THE SUICIDE. 

a fra<;mknt. 
"Put out tin- light, and then," &c— Siiakspeare. 

I Ik roain'd, an Ar.il> on life's desert waste — 
Its waters fleeting when they seem'd most near — 

Love's phantom lea\ ing, when long vainly chased — 
No aim to animate, no hope to cheer. 

His was a heart where love, when once it sprung, 
With every feeling would its tendrils twine; 

And still it grew, though baffled, crush'd, and 
wrung, 
Rankly, as round an oak some noxious vine, 

Within the poisonous folds of whose embraee 
W il Ik rs each generous shoot that quickens there, 

Till the proud features we no more can trace, 
Which once that noble stem was wont to wear. 

And time pass'd on — Time who both joy and grief 
Bears on his tireless wings alike away, 

As storms the bursting bud and withcr'd leaf 
Will sweep together from the fragile spray. 

Her form matured, with all its girlish grace, 
A woman's softer, full proportion wore ; 

And none could look upon that radiant fa.ee, 
And not the soul enthroned there adore. 

Her eye was bright, or should a thought of him 
Its laughing lustre for a moment shade, 

'T was but a passing cloud which could not dim 
The buoyant spirit in its beams that play'd. 

And others bow'd where he before had knelt, 
And she to one, who even at such a shrine 

Could only feign what he alone had felt, 
Did the rich guerdon of her heart resign. 

She loved him for — for God knows what — 'tis true 
In Fashion's field a brilliant name he'd earn'd; 

And, with his full-dress pantaloons on too, 

His legs and compliments were both well turn'd. 

We love, we know not why — in joy or sadness 
We waste on one the fountains of the heart, 

The mind's best energies, the — pshaw ! — 'tis mad- 
ness — 
'Tis worse than frenzy — 'tis an idiot's part. 

This Bertram knew — for his was not the dreaming 
Cherish'd illusion of a feeble mind ; 

He knew, too, that in hours there's no redeeming 
A soul like his from bonds which years have 
twined. 

That she ne'er had loved him, came the cold assu- 
rance 
Home to his heart, when all its springs were 
wasted ; 
He felt that his had been the vain endurance 
Of pangs to her unknown — by her untasted. 

6 D2 



Dazzled by the prize his soul, his senses ravish'd, 
Rashly he ventured on a dangerous game : 

Lost, beyond hope, the stake so madly lavish'd, 
And felt his folly was_ alone to blame. 

And then he knew they had not each been weighing 
An equal hazard in the chance gone by : 

She had but been with the heart's counters playing — 
He, he had set his all upon a die. 

But to what purpose now avail'd the seeing 

That love, such as ne'er did human pulses stir — 

Which was to him the very food of being — 
Was but as pastime and a toy to her ? 

Her empire o'er his soul had been too deeply founded 
Too long establish'd to reconquer now ; 

Still was she doom'd to be the heaven which 
bounded 
The world of all his hopes and fears below. 

And were it not so, could the charm around him 
Even by a word of his at last be broken, , 

Fully as now that spell would yet have bound him — 
That magic word would still remain unspoken. 

One night it chanced, when homeward sadly stray- 
ing, 
Beneath her window that he paused, unmoved, 
To watch the light which, through the casement 
playing, 
At times was darken'd by the form he loved — 

When through the half raised sash, the summer air 
Brought, through the blind which screen'd the 
lady's bower, 

Words to the throbbing ear, which listsn'd there, 
That told him first it was her bridal hour ! 

The sounds of revelry had ceased — the lights 
Were all extinguish'd, except one alone ; 

'Tis that, 'tis that his straining vision blights, 
Dimly as through the half-shut blind it shone ! 

That little light ! The burning Afric sun, 

Which pour'd its fierce and scorching noonday 
blaze 

The heroic Roman's lidless eyes upon, 

Was not more maddening than that taper's rays. 

The light's removed — but still a shadow dim 

Upon the curtain's folds reflected falls ! 
The light 's extinguished — and the world to him 



THE THAW-KING'S VISIT TO NEW YORK. 

He comes on the wings of the warm south-west, 

In the 'saffron hues of the sunbeam dress'd, 

And lingers awhile on the placid bay, 

As the ice-cake languidly steals away, 

To drink those gems which the wave turns up, 

Like Egyptian pearls in the Roman's cup. 



42 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



Then hies to the wharves where the hawser binds 
The impatient ship from the wistful winds, 
And slackens each rope till it hangs from on high, 
Less firmly pencill'd against the sky ; 
And sports in the stiffen'd canvass there 
Till its folds float out in the wooing air : 
Then leaves these quellers of Ocean's pride 
To swing from the pier on the lazy tide. 

He reaches the Battery's grassy bed, 

And the earth smokes out from beneath his tread ; 

And he turns him about to look wistfully back 

On each charm that he leaves on his beautiful track ; 

Each islet of green which the bright waters fold, 

Like emeralds, fresh from their bosom roll'd, 

The sea just peering the headlands through, 

AVhere the sky is lost in its deeper blue, 

And the thousand barks which securely sweep 

With silvery wing round the land-lock'd deep. 

He loiters awhile on the springy ground, 
To watch the children gambol around, 
And thinks it hard that a touch from him 
Cannot make the aged as lithe of limb; 
That he has no power to melt the rime, 
The stubborn frost that is made by Time ; 
And sighing he leaves the urchins to play, 
And lanches at last on the world of Broadway. 

There were faces and figures of heavenly mould, 

Of charms not yet by the poet told ; 

There were dancing plumes, there were mantles gay, 

Flowers and ribbons flaunting there, 
Such as of old on a festival day 

The Idalian nymphs were wont to wear. 
And the Thaw-king felt his cheek flush high, 

And his pulses flutter in every limb, 
As he gazed on many a beaming eye, 
And many a form that flitted by, 

With twinkling foot and ankle trim. 

And he practised many an idle freak, 

As he lounged the morning through ; 
He sprung the frozen gutters aleak, 

For want of aught else to do ; 
And left them black as a libeller's ink, 
To gurgle away to the sewer-sink. 
He sees a beggar, gaunt and grim, 

Arouse a miser's choler, 
And he laughs while he melts the soul of him 

To fling the wretch a dollar ; 
And he thinks how small a heaven 'twould take 
For a world of souls like his to make. 

He read placarded upon a wall, 

" That the country now on its friends did call, 

For Liberty was in danger ;" 
And he went to a room ten feet by four, 
Where a chairman and sec. and a couple more 

(Making Jive with our friendly stranger), 



By the aid of four slings and two tallow tapers, 
Were preparing to tell in the morning papers 

That the Union was broken 

By this very token, 
" That the People in mass last night had spoken !" 

He saw an Oneida baskets peddling 

Around the place where the polls were held ; 
And a Fed' the Red-skin kick for meddling, 
As the Indian a Democrat's ballot spell'd. 
That son of the soil 
Who had no vote, 
How dared he to spoil 
A trick so neat, 
Meant only to cheat 
The voters who hither from Europe float ! 

And now as the night falls chill and gray, 

Like a drizzling rain on a new-made tomb, 
And his father, the Sun, has slunk away, 

And left him alone to gas and gloom, 
The Thaw-king steals in a vapor thin, 
Through the lighted porch of a house, wherein 
Music and mirth were gayly mingled ; 

And groups like hues in one bright flower 
Dazzled the Thaw-king while he singled 

Some one on whom to try his power. 

He enters first in a lady's eyes, 

And thrusts at a dandy's heart ; 
But the vest that is made by Frost, defies 

The point of the Thaw-king's dart ; 
And the baffled spirit pettishly flies 

On a pedant to try his art ; 
But his aim is equally foil'd by the dust- 
y lore that envelopes the man of must. 

And next he tries with a fiddler's sighs 

To melt the heart of a belle ; 
But around her waist there 's a stout arm placed, 

Which shields that lady well. 
And that waist ! oh ! that waist — it is one that you 

would 
Like to clasp in a waltz, or — wherever you 
could. 

Her figure was fashion'd tall and slim, 

But with rounded bust and shapely limb; 
And her queen-like step as she trod the floor, 

And her look as she bridled in beauty's pride, 
Was such as the Tyrian heroine wore 
When she blush'd alone on the conscious shore, 

The wandering Dardan's unwedded bride. 

And the Thaw-king gazed on that lady bright, 
With her form of love and her looks of light, 
Till his spirits began to wane, 

And his wits were put to rout ; 

And entering into an editor's brain, 

He thaw'd this " article" out. 



EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



43 



RHYMES ON WEST POINT. 
I've trod thy mountain paths, thy valleys deep, 
Through mazy thickets, and through tangled 
heath ; 
I We climb'd thy piled up rocks, from steep to steep, 
And gazed with rapture on the scene beneath. 

The noble plain that lies cmbosom'd there, 
The jutting headlands in thy mimic bay — 

The stream, impatient of his curb'd career, 
Sweeping through mighty mountains far away, 

His bosom bumish'd by the setting sun, 

Who, loath to leave his own illumined west, 

Dyes with his huts the wave he shines upon, 
And gilds the clouds which cradle him to rest. 

I love West Point, and long could fondly dwell 
On scenes which must through life my memory 
haunt, 

But you, too, reader, have been there as well 
As I — if not, you'd better take the jaunt. 

You rise at six, and by half after ten 

You 're at the Point — I was when last I went — 
You rest awhile at Cozzens's, and then 

May stroll toward the upper Monument. 

At two- you dine — (you'll think it not too soon, 
Being sharp set from your long morning's ram- 
ble)— 
And to Fort Port Putnam in the afternoon, 

O'er rocks and brushwood up the mountain 
scramble. 

The view which this majestic height commands 
Repays the trouble of its rough access ; 

For he beholds, who on the rampart stands, 
A scene of grandeur and of loveliness : 

The chain of mountains, sweeping far away — 
The white encampment spread beneath his feet — 

The sloop, slow dropping down the placid bay — 
Her form reflected in its glassy sheet. 

And where the river's banks less boldly swell, 
Villas upon some sunny slope are seen ; 

And white huts buried in some wooded dell — 
With chimneys peering through their leafy 
screen. 

'Tis sweet to watch from hence at close of day, 
While shadows lengthen on the mountain side, 

The sunbeams steal from peak to peak away, 
And white sails gleam along the dusky tide. 

And sweet to woman's eye, at evening hour, 
The gay parade that animates the plain, 

When martial music lends its kindling power, 
To thrill the bosom with some stirring strain — 

Who, when they to their gleaming ranks repair, 
Delight to gaze upon the bright array 

Of young, good-looking fellows marshall'd there 
In pigeon-breasted coats of iron-gray. 



For girls the glare of warlike pomp adore, • 
Since, cased in steel, with lance and curtlc-axe on, 

Bold Cccur-de-Lion led his knights to war, 
Down to the days of Major-General Jackson. 

At night, when home returning, it is sweet, 
While stars arc twinkling in the fields above, 

And whispering breezes in the foliage meet, 
To move in such a scene with one we love. 

To feel the spell of woman's witchery near, 
And while the magic o'er our senses steals, 

Believe the being whom we hold most dear, 
As deeply as ourselves that moment feels. 

The dolphin's hues are brightest while he dies, 
The rainbow's glories in their birth decay, 

And love's bright visions, like our autumn skies, 
Will fade the soonest when they seem most gay. 

In " true love" now I am an arrant skeptic, 
My heart's best music is for ever hush'd ; 

Perhaps because I 'm briefless and dyspeptic, 
Perhaps my hopes were once too rudely crush'd. 

But to return — to lawyerling too poor, 
Leaving his duns and office to a friend, 

To take the northern or the eastern tour, 
This short excursion I will recommend. 

'Tis but two dollars and a day bestow'd, 
And far from town, its dust and busy strife, 

You '11 find the jaunt a pleasing episode 
In the dull epic of a city life. 

A BIRTH-DAY MEDITATION. 

Another year ! alas, how swift, 

Alinda, do these years flit by, 
Like shadows thrown by clouds that drift 

In flakes along a wintry sky. 
Another year ! another leaf 
Is turn'd within life's volume brief, 
And yet not one bright page appears 
Of mine within that book of years. 

There are some moments when I feel 

As if it should not yet be so ; 
As if the years that from me steal 

Had not a right alike to go, 
And lose themselves in Time's dark sea, 
Unbuoy'd up by aught from me ; 
Aught that the future yet might claim 
To rescue from their wreck a name. 

But it was love that taught me rhyme, 
And it was thou that taught me love ; 

And if I in this idle chime 

Of words a useless sluggard prove, 

It was thine eyes the habit nursed, 

And in their light I learn'd it first. 

It is thine eyes which, day by day, 

Consume my time and heart away. 



44 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



And often bitter thoughts arise 
Of what I've lost in loving thee, 

And in my breast my spirit dies, 
The gloomy cloud around to see, 

Of baffled hopes and ruin'd powers 

Of mind, and miserable hours — 

Of self-upbraiding, and despair — 

Of heart, too strong and fierce to bear. 

" Why, what a peasant slave am I," 

To bow my mind and bend my knee 
To woman in idolatry, 

Who takes no thought of mine or me. 
O, God ! that I could breathe my life 
On battle-plain in charging strife — 
In one mad impulse pour my soul 
Far beyond passion's base control. 

Thus do my jarring thoughts revolve 

Their gather'd causes of offence, 
Until I in my heart resolve 

To dash thine angel image thence ; 
When some bright look, some accent kind, 
Comes freshly in my heated mind, 
And scares, like newly-flushing day 
These brooding thoughts like owls away. 

And then for hours and hours I muse 

On tilings that might, yet will not be, 
Till, one by one, my feelings lose 

Their passionate intensity, 
And steal away in visions soft, 
Which on wild wing those feelings waft 
Far, far beyond the drear domain 
Of reason and her freezing reign. 

And now again from their gay track 

I call, as I despondent sit, 
Once more these truant fancies back, 

Which round my brain so idly flit ; 
And some I treasure, some I blush 
To own — and these I try to crush — 
And some, too wild for reason's rein, 
I loose in idle rhyme again. 

And even thus my moments fly, 

And even thus my hours decay, 
And even thus my years slip by, 

My life itself is wiled away ; 
But distant still the mounting hope, 
The burning wish with men to cope 
In aught that minds of iron mould 
May do or dare for fame or gold. 

Another year ! another year, 

Alinda, it shall not be so ; 
Both love and lays forswear I here, 

As I 've forsworn thee long ago. 
That name, which thou wouldst never share, 
Proudly shall fame emblazon where 
On pumps and corners posters stick it, 
The highest on the Jackson ticket. 



PLATONICS. 
A place for me — one place for me, 

Within that wild young heart be kept ; 
Howe'er Affection's chords may there 

By other hands than mine be swept ; 
However unto Love's mad thrill . 

Their music may responsive be, 
As now let sober Friendship still 

Preserve one note — one place for me. 

When thy bright spirit, grave or gay, 

Some other chains delighted near, 
To catch thy features' varying play, 

And watch each lightning thought appear, 
However thou his soul mayst touch, 

Let him not wholly thine enthral 
From one who ever loved so much 

To chase its meteor windings all. 

When mid some scene where Nature flings 

Her loveliest enchantments round, 
And in thy kindling soul upsprings 

Thoughts which no mortal breast can bound. 
Or when upon some deathless page 

Thy mind communes with kindred mind, 
Still let me there one thought engage, 

And round thy soaring spirit wind. 

When first the bride-like dawn is blushing 

Within the arms of joyous Day, 
Or when the twilight dews are hushing 

His footsteps o'er the hills away ; 
When from the fretted vault above, 

God's ever burning lamps are hung, 
And when in dreams of Heaven and love, 

His mercies are around thee flung. 

A place for me — one place for me, 

Within thy memory live enshrined, 
Whatever idols Time may raise 

Upon the altars of thy mind. 
And while youth's hopes before me sweep, 

Like bubbles on a freshening sea — 
My bark of life shall ever keep 

One sacred berth for thee — for thee. 



"COMING OUT"— A DREAM 

Young Lesbia slept. Her glowing cheek 
Was on her polish' d arm reposing, 

And slumber closed those fatal eyes 

Which keep so many eyes from closing. 

For even Cupid, when fatigued 

Of playing with his bow and arrows, 

Will harmless furl his weary wings, 
And nestle with his mother's sparrows. 

Young Lesbia slept — and visions gay 
Before her dreaming soul were glancing, 

Like sights that in the moonbeams show, 
When fairies on the green are dancing. 



EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



45 



And, first, amid a joyous throng 
She seem'd to move in festive measure, 

Willi many a courtly worshipper, 

That waited cm hex queenly pleasure. 

And then, by one of those strange turns 

That witch the mind so when we're dreaming, 
She was a planet in the sky, 

And they were stars around her beaming. 
Yet hardly had that lovely light 

(To which one cannot here help kneeling) 
Its radiance in the vault above 

Been for a few short hours revealing, 

When, like a blossom from the bough, 
By some remorseless whirlwind riven, 

Swiftly upon its lurid path, 

'Twas back to earth like lightning driven. 

Yet, brightly still, though coldly, there 
Those other stars were calmly shining, 

As if they did not miss the rays 

That were but now with their own twining. 

And half with pique, and half with pain, 
To be from that gay chorus parting, 

Young Lesbia from her dream awoke, 

With swelling heart and teardrop starting. 

INTERPRETATION. 

Had she but thought of those below, 

Who thus were left with breasts benighted, 

Till Heaven dismiss'd that star to earth, 
By which alone our hearts are lighted — 

Or, had she recollected, when 

Each virtue from the world departed, 

How Hope, the dearest, came again, 
And stay'd to cheer the lonely-hearted : 

Sweet Lesbia could not thus have grieved, 
From that cold, dazzling throng to sever, 

And yield her warm, young heart again 
To those that prize its worth for ever. 



THE WAXEN ROSE* 

Go, mocking flower, 

Thou plastic child of art, 
Back to my lady's bower ; 
Go and ask if thou, 
False rose, art proven now 
An emblem of her heart ? 

Tell her, that like thee, 

That heart's of little worth, 
However kind it be, 

Which any hand with skill 
May mould unto its will ; 
Too pliant from its birth. 

* "Go, lovely rose." — Waller. 



Go, cheating blossom, 

Scentless as morning dew, 
Go ask if in her bosom, 

Although love's bud may be 
In brightness like to thee, 
It owns no fragrance too. 

But if fadeless, yet 

Like thee her love blooms on ; 

Tell her — oh, ne'er forget 

To tell her, from my heart 
Affection will not part 

When all life's flowers are sfone. 



TO A LADY, 

WITH A COLLECTION OP VERSES. 

A passing sigh, perhaps — perchance a sneer — 
Is all these lines, if ever read, may claim ; 

And the wild thoughts, so vainly written here, 
A worldly mind, perhaps, will calmly name 
The sickly record of ' a stripling's flame.' 

Yet, Lady, should you chance when years are jfled, 
Some hour when Memory from each burial-place 

Gives up once more her long-forgotten dead, 
Recalls the looks of each familiar face, 
And in the heart renews each time-worn trace — 

At such an hour, when others claim the sigh 
Remembrance gives to early ties decay'd, 

To hopes and fears now gone for ever by, 
To scenes in memory's twilight charms array'd, 
And loves and friendships long ago betray'd — 

Should you then chance these faded lines to meet, 
I know they will thy transient gaze arrest ; 

And he whose heart while yet Hope's pulses beat 
Was thine, within thy pensive breast 
Will claim one gentle thought among the rest. 

MYNE HEARTTE. 

I sommetymes thinnke thye womannes artte 

Hathe fromme mye bosomme whytchd my heartte, 

Yt dothe soe oftenne feele to mee 

Lyke caskette where no jewelles be ; 

Or, oceanne shelle wilk breathes dystresse, 

I ween fromme verye emptynesse ; 

And thenne I wishe sic faythlesse heartte 

Of mee hadde never beene a parte. 

And sommetymes doe I thynnke yts tyde 

Is bye thye coldnesse petryfyd ; 

Or, thatte thyne eyne scorche uppe ye sayme 

Fromme healthfulle boundynges through mye 

fraymme, 
Yt laggs soe in its course lyke staynes, 
Wilk blushynge creepe through cowardes veynes ; 
And thenne I thynke that sic an heartte 
Of manne hadde bettere notte be parte. 



46 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



And sommetymes doe I thynke 'twere welle 
Thys heartte shouldde breake beneathe thye spelle, 
Since lonnge yt onlye thoughtes of paynne 
Hathe sentte untoe my wearye brainne. 
Soe manaye that ye sabel suite 
Dothe crowde mye reasonne fromme her seatte, 
And mayke me thynnke I 'd ray ther parte 
Wythe lyfe in sic an faythlesse heartte. 

WRITING FOR AN ALBUM. 
I'll try no more — 'tis all in vain 

To rack for wit my head, 
Wit left the mansion of my brain 
When ye inhabited. 
Thoughts will not come — words will not flow 
Except when thus toward thee they go. 

Oh ! thou wert born to be my blight, 

My bane upon this earth — 
Fate did my doom that moment write 
In which those eyes had birth. 
'Tis strange that aught so good, so pure, 
Should work the evil I endure. 

Thou darkenest each hope that flings 

O'er life one sunny ray ; 
And to each joy thou lendest wings 
To take itself away. 
Yet hope and joy — oh what to me 
Are they, unless they spring from thee ! 

I'll try no more — 'tis all in vain 

To rack for wit my head, 
While every chamber of my brain 
By thee is tenanted. 
Thoughts will not come — words will not flow 
Except when thus toward thee they go. 

TO A LADY WEEPING IN CHURCH. 

When tears from such as thee bedew the cheek, 
In scenes like this — 'twould seem that heavenly 
eyes 

The soften'd glories of religion speak, 

And claim the dewdrop from their kindred skies. 

'Tis said that female saints of other days, 

From grovelling guilt could purge the foulest 
breast, 

And teach the poor deluded wretch the ways 
That lead to mansions of eternal rest. 

And who could look upon thy heavenly face, 
Nor feel his breast with sacred fervor glow ; 

While every tear that fell from thee would chase 
Each thought that link'd him to this world below. 

If then one tear of thine — one murmur'd sigh, 
Can tune the heart to sacred scenes like this ; 

Why doubt the power to lure the soul on high, 
And lead it captive to the realms of bliss ? 
Albany, 1825. 



BYRON. 

His hopes would fade like sunset clouds, 
Which melt in blackening skies, 

Until he sought that peace in crowds 
A cheerless home denies. 

He roam'd, an Arab on life's waste, 

Its kindly springs to drink ; 
A Tantalus, from whose hot taste 

The cooling waters shrink. 

And when he would each trace forget 
That mark'd his early course, 

Remembrance brought but regret, 
Regret became remorse. 

And then he watched life's lamps go out, 

Its friendships one by one 
Decay, and leave his soul without 

A light beneath the sun. 

HOLDING A GIRL'S JUMPING ROPE. 

'Tis true thou art no silken band 
That knits my own with Zoe's hand, 

No fairy's chosen fetter ; 
Yet Love himself, if strength alone 
Were in his shackles to be shown, 

Could hardly find a better. 

Thy stoutly twisted hempen strand 
Would hang each felon in the land, 

As high as e'er was Haman : 
And — unless heavier than his head, 
Are hearts by love inhabited, 

Would hold the wildest Damon. 

But thou — like rods magicians bear, 
Of secret power art not aware, 

Nor yet to trace art able 
The story of one coil that lingers 
So lovingly on Zoe's fingers — 

Thou highly favor'd cable ! 

Since first in June, when hemp is green, 
And bees and butterflies are seen 

Along its blossoms sailing, 
Through mellow Autumn's jocund hours, 
When warblers from the brown wood's bowers 

Are on its seeds regaling — 

Till steadying on some top-most spar 
The footsteps of the gallant tar, 

Upon the wave careering, 
Or pendent from the stately mast, 
Through glowing palms thy cordage pass'd, 

Some banner bold uprearing. 

'T is strange that aught so void of life 
Should have, as if with feeling rife, 

The electric power to mingle 
The pulses that, upon my word, 
I felt just now, together stirr'd, 

Through all thy twistings tingle ! 



EARLY MISCELLANIES. 



47 



THE DECLAMATION. 
1 un the li:ill. as late it wore, 
„ And glad to be in her boudoir 
From surveillance exempt, I 
Goied on the boohs she last had read, 
The chair her form had hallowed, 
\uii grieved that it was empty* 

And sleep his web-was round me weaving 
While listening to that wind-harp's breathing 

Whose melody so wild is, 
When one, whose charms are not of earth, 
(Her father just a jdum is worth, 

And she his only fluid is), 

With stealthy step before me stood, 
As if to kiss in mad-cap mood, 

My eyes, in slumber folded. 
Her form was full — too full, you'd say, 
And marvel ! — at the graceful play 

Of charms so plumply moulded. 

Her eyes were of a liquid blue, 
Like sapphires limpid water through 

Their soften'd lustre darting; 
Her mind-illumined brow was white 
As snow-drift in the pale moonlight; 

The hair across it parting 

Was of that paly brown, we're told 
By poets takes a tinge of gold 

When sunbeams through it tremble, 
While round her mouth two dimples play'd 
Like — nothing e'er on earth was made 

Those dimples to resemble. 

And there she stood in girlish glee 
To win a pair of gloves, or see 

How odd I'd look when waking, 
When I her round and taper waist 
So unexpectedly embraced, 

The bond there was no breaking. 

Her snowy bosom swcll'd as though 
The lava there beneath the snow 

Would heave it from its moorings ; 
Her eye scem'd half with anger fired, 
And half with tenderness inspired 

In lightning-like endurings. 

But when I loosed the eager grasp 
In which I to my breast did clasp 

Her struggling and unwilling, 
I felt somehow her fragile fingers 
(The tingling in my own yet lingers) 

Within my pressure thrilling. 

I spoke to her — she answer'd not — 
I told her — now I scarce know what — > 

I only do remember 
My feelings when in words cxpress'd, 
Though warm as August in my breast, 

Seem'd colder than December. 



But how can words the thoughts express 
Of love so deep, BO measureless 
As that which I have cherish'd ? 

God ! if my scar'd heart had given 
The same devotedness to Heaven, 

It would not thus have pcrish'd ! 

1 said, " You know— you must have known- 
I long have loved — loved you alone, 

But cannot know how dearly." 
I told her if my hopes were cross'd, 
My every aim in life was lost — 

She knew I spoke sincerely ! 

She answer'd — as I breathless dwelt 
Upon her words, and would have knelt> 

" Nay, move not thus the least, 
You have— you long have had" — " Say on, 
Sweet girl ! thy heart ?" — " Your foot upon 

The flounce of my battiste." 

CLOSING ACCOUNTS. 

I placed — it was not ten years since — 

Sweet coz, a heart within thy keeping, 
In which there was no pulse of prince, 

Of poet, or of hero, leaping, 
But it was generous, warm and true, 

True to itself, and true to thee : 
And toward thine own it fondly drew— 

Drew almost in idolatry. 

I came to thee when years had fled, 

To learn how well the charge was kept, 
That heart — it was so altered, 

Upon the change I could have wept : 
The buoyant hope, the daring aim, 

The independence, stern and high ; 
Spirit, misfortune could not tame, 

And pride that might the worst defy- 
All, all were gone— and in their stead, 

Were bitter and were blasted feelings : 
And thoughts Despair so far had led 

They shudderd at their own revealings. 
Yet I — although Distrust did prey 

Within that heart so wildly then- 
It ate the better half away, 

I left the rest with thee again. 

Perhaps that heart in worthier case, 

I thought thou wouidst at last restore ; 
Perhaps I hoped thou mightst replace 

With thine, the one abused before : 
Perhaps there was — the truth as well 

May out at once — perhaps there was in 
Those matchless eyes so strong a spell 

I could not help it, witching cousin. 

Well, it was thine — thine only still, 
A little worse, perhaps, for wear ; 

But firm, despite of every ill 

Which Fate and thou had gather'd there. 



HOFFMAN'S POEMS. 



Yet now, when Youth and Hope are' past, 
And Care will soon make manhood grajr, 

I think — I think from thee at last 
That I must take that heart away. 

Still, if it grieve thee to restore 

' A trust that's held so carelessly, 
Or if, when asking back once more, 

The heart I left in pledge with thee, 
It may, in spite of all I've said, 

By some odd chance with thine be blended, 
Why, cousin, give me that instead, 

And all our business here is ended, 

FOREST MUSINGS. 
The hunt is up — 
The merry woodland shout, 
That rung these echoing glades about 

An hour agone, 
Hath swept beyond the eastern hills, 

Where, pale and lone, 
The moon her mystic circle fills ; 
A while across the setting sun's broad disc 
The dusky larch, 

As if to pierce the blue o'erhanging arch, 
Lifts its tall obelisk. 
And now from thicket dark, 

Where, by the mist-wreathed river, 
The fire-fly's spark 
Will fitful quiver, 
And bubbles round the lily's cup 
From lurking trout come coursing up, 
Where stoops the wading fawn to drink ; 

While, scared by step so near, 
Uprising from the sedgy brink 
The lonely bittern's cry will sink 

Upon the startled ear. 
And thus upon my dreaming youth, 

When boyhood's gambols pleased no more, 
And young Romance, in guise of Truth, 
Usurp'd the heart all theirs before ; 
Thus broke ambition's trumpet-note 

On visions wild, 
Yet blithesome as this river 

On which the smiling moonbeams float, 
That thus have there for ages smiled, 
And will thus smile for ever. 
And now no more the fresh green-wood, 

The forest's fretted aisles 
And leafy domes above them bent, 
And solitude 
So eloquent ! 
Mocking the varied skill that 's blent 



In art's most gorgeous piles — 
No mord can soothe my soul to sleep 
Than they can awe the sounds that sweep 
To hunter's horn and merriment 
Their verdant passes through, 
When fresh the dun-deer leaves his scent 

Upon the morning dew. 
The game 's afoot !— and let the chase 

Lead on, whate'er my destiny — 
Though fate her funeral drum may brace 

Full soon for me ! 
And wave death's pageant o'er me — 
Yet now the new and untried world 
Like maiden banner first unfurl'd, 
Is glancing bright before me ! 
The quarry soars ! and mine is now the sky, 
Where, " at what bird I please, my hawk shall fly !" 
Yet something whispers through the wood 

A voice like that perchance 
Which taught the haunter of Egeria's grove 
To tame the Roman's dominating mood 

And lower, for awhile, his conquering lance 
Before the images of Law and Love — 
Some mystic voice that ever since hath dwelt 

Along with Echo in her dim retreat, 
A voice whose influence all, at times, have felt 

By wood, or glen, or where on silver strand 
The clasping waves of Ocean's belt 
Do clashing meet 

Around the land ; 
It whispers me that soon — too soon 

The pulses which now beat so high, 
Impatient with the world to cope, 
Will, like the hues of autumn sky, 
Be changed and fallen ere life's noon 
Should tame its morning hope. 
Yet why, 
While Hope so jocund singeth [eth, 

And with her plumes the gray-beard's arrow wing- 
Should I 
Think only of the barb it bringeth ? 
Though every dream deceive 

That to my youth is dearest, 
Until my heart they leave 

Like forest leaf when searest — 
Yet still, mid forest leaves, 

Where now 
Its tissue thus my idle fancy weaves, 
Still with heart new-blossoming 
While leaves, and buds, and wild flowers spring, 

At Nature's shrine I '11 bow ; 
Nor seek in vain that truth in her 
She keeps for her idolater. 



THE END. 




UOTSM & HILMDSTiK], 

WILL PUBLISH, ON THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER, 

THE ILLySTMTEE) B©®JC 



EDITED BY 

REV. RTJFUS W. GRISWOLD. 

This -work has been executed in a style perfectly unique, at the celebrated 
Stereotype Foundry of L. JOHNSON, Philadelphia, the most tasteful artist 
of his department in the United States. The wood engravings -were designed 
and executed in Germany ; and the splendid Illuminated Cover and other em- 
bellishments are by PINKERTON, WAGNER & McGUIGAN, and W. CROOME. 
It is, altogether, one of the most elegant volumes produced in this country. 





KING & BAIED, PRINTERS, PHILADELPHIA. 




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